With the progressive increase in temperatures, forest fires during the summer are becoming more intense, causing forests to have serious difficulties to regenerate Since, not only do plants have problems germinating, but it also affects the animals that inhabit it in a very worrying way, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
But not only that, but the human impact on the environment is such that the felling of trees can modify the habitat, thus preventing it from recovering naturally after a disaster.
The authors of the study, among which are the researchers Roger Puig-Gironès, member of the Animal Biology group of the University of Girona (UdG), and Pere Pons, of the Forest Technology Center of Catalonia-Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications ( CTFC-CREAF), state that climate change is causing major problems for forests after fire.
Typically, fires are natural phenomena capable of rejuvenating forests. In fact, there are some plants that can only germinate after being subjected to high temperatures, as is the case of the Proteas that live in Africa for example.
However, When this phenomenon occurs in a region where temperatures only increase, making the soil increasingly arid, the forest cannot regenerate as easily as it did before, and less if the human being prevents it by cutting down trees to plant monocultures or to build.
To reach this conclusion, The researchers carried out an analysis with more than 3000 samples of birds and vegetation from 70 areas that were burned in Catalonia to find out how increased aridity influenced the regeneration of a forest after a fire. Thus, they were able to find out that this increase negatively affects both the recovery of plants and that of birds.
You can read the study here.