Free Standard AU & NZ Shipping For All Book Orders Over $80!
Register      Login
International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
RESEARCH ARTICLE

The impacts of large-scale, low-intensity fires on the forests of continental South-east Asia

Patrick J. Baker A D , Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin B and Andrew P. Robinson C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Australian Centre for Biodiversity and School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia.

B Research Office, National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand.

C Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.

D Corresponding author. Email: patrick.baker@sci.monash.edu.au

International Journal of Wildland Fire 17(6) 782-792 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF07147
Submitted: 15 October 2007  Accepted: 24 June 2008   Published: 12 December 2008

Abstract

South-east Asia’s tropical forests harbour high levels of species richness and endemism. In continental South-east Asia strong rainfall seasonality driven by the Asian monsoon lead to ground-fires during the dry season in most years. How these fires influence the region’s landscape mosaic of evergreen and deciduous forests and the biodiversity they support is poorly understood. In this paper we report on the impacts of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation-induced 1997–98 fires that burned across much of western Thailand. We compare fire effects in the three common regional forest types – seasonal evergreen (SEG); mixed deciduous (MDF); and deciduous dipterocarp – and use data from a 50-ha study plot to evaluate the impacts of fire on these forests. We found few differences among the forest types. The fires created more large gaps in MDF than the other forest types. The SEG experienced greater fire mortality in the smallest size classes, abundant resprouting, and showed some evidence of lagged mortality among larger trees. The resilience of the SEG to fire and lack of major differences in fire effects among the forest types suggest that infrequent landscape-scale fires may have little effect on biodiversity in the landscape mosaic of seasonal tropical forests of continental South-east Asia.


Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the National Research Council of Thailand, the Royal Forest Department and the staff of the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary for enabling us to conduct this research at HKK. We would also like to thank the National Science Foundation for support through grant DEB-0075334 to Peter Ashton and Stuart Davies, the USDA Forest Service through a grant to Chad Oliver, and Sigma Xi for a Grant-in-Aid-of-Resaerch to P. J. Baker. We would also like to thank Dick Williams, Ross Bradstock, and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments on the manuscript. This is publication 182 of the Australian Centre for Biodiversity.


References


Agee JK (1993) ‘Fire ecology of Pacific Northwest forests.’ (Island Press: Washington, DC)

Ashton PS (1990) Thailand: biodiversity center for the tropics of Indo-Burma. Journal of the Science Society of Thailand  16, 107–116.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Fire behavior and fire effects across the forest landscape of continental South-east Asia. In ‘Tropical Fire Ecology: Climate Change, Land Use, and Ecosystem Dynamics’. (Ed. M Cochrane) (Springer-Praxis: Heidelberg), in press.

Barlow J, Peres CA, Lagan BO , Haugaasen T (2003a) Large tree mortality and the decline of forest biomass following Amazonian wildfires. Ecology Letters  6, 6–8.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Champion HG, Seth SK (1968) ‘A revised survey of the forest types of India.’ (Natraj Publishers: Dehra Dun, India)

Cleary DFR, Priadjat A, Suryokusumo BK , Menken SBJ (2006) Butterfly, seedling, sapling and tree diversity and composition in a fire-affected Bornean rainforest. Austral Ecology  31, 46–57.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Goldammer JG (1993) Historical biogeography of fire: tropical and subtropical. In ‘Fire in the Environment: The Ecological, Atmospheric, and Climatic Importance of Vegetation Fires’. (Eds PJ Crutzen, JG Goldammer) pp. 297–314. (Wiley: New York)

Haberle SG, Hope GS , van der Kaars S (2001) Biomass burning in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea: natural and human induced fire events in the fossil record. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology  171, 259–268.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Leighton M, Wirawan N (1986) Catastrophic drought and fire in Borneo tropical rainforest associated with the 1982–83 El Niño–Southern Oscillation event. In ‘Tropical Forests and the World Atmosphere’. (Ed. GT Prance) AAAS Selected Symposium 101, pp. 75–102. (American Association for the Advancement of Science: Washington, DC)

Malingreau JP, Stephens G , Fellows L (1985) Remote sensing of forest fires: Kalimantan and North Borneo in 1982–83. Ambio  14, 314–321.
Nakhasathien S, Stewart-Cox B (1990) Nomination of the Thung Yai/Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Royal Forest Department Publication. (Bangkok, Thailand)

Penny DP (2001) A 40 000 year palynological record from north-east Thailand; implications for biogeography and palaeo-environmental reconstruction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology  171, 97–128.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Stott PA, Goldammer JG, Werner WL (1990) The role of fire in the tropical lowland deciduous forests of Asia. In ‘Fire in the Tropical Biota: Ecosystem Processes and Challenges’. (Ed. JG Goldammer) pp. 32–44. (Springer: New York)

Taylor D, Saksena P, Sanderson PG , Kucera K (1999) Environmental change and rain forests on the Sunda shelf of Southeast Asia: drought, fire and the biological cooling of biodiversity hotspots. Biodiversity and Conservation  8, 1159–1177.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Troup RS (1921) ‘The Silviculture of Indian Trees. Vol. I Dilleniaceae to Leguminosae (Papilionaceae).’ (Clarendon Press: Oxford, UK)

Williams LJ, Bunyavejchewin S , Baker PJ (2008) Deciduousness in a seasonal tropical forest in western Thailand: interannual and intraspecific variation in timing, duration, and environmental cues. Oecologia  155, 571–582.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |