查看文章

Forest wildfires can severely affect the soil faunal community. We hypothesised that the recovery of soil animals after a fire would occur through (1) immigration from the unburnt forest into the burnt area and (2) survival in less-burnt patches or deep soil layers. To test the rate of recovery, and whether immigration or survival was the main recovery factor, we studied soil macrofauna after two wildfires occurring in 2001 in central Sweden and north-western Russia. The animals were studied up to 2007 by taking soil and litter samples including unburnt and burnt forest plots 20 and 60 m from the edge of the unburnt forest. Total abundance and species richness was 1.5–5 times higher in the unburnt than in the burnt areas shortly after fire. Animals in deep soil layers had a better survival after fire than surface-dwelling species. The burnt area was colonised within a few months by flying insects, mostly dipterans. When the …