Recolonização da comunidade de aves pós fogo na Reserva Vegetal do Clube Caça e Pesca Itororó de Uberlândia

Abstract

Fire in the Cerrado is characterized as a structuring factor of the vegetation, directly and indirectly influencing the avifauna. The high mobility of birds makes them look for nearby unburned areas to take refuge for a certain time of period, and then, with the regeneration of the vegetation, they return to these places, and recolonize the area. This process is related to the vegetation succession, for as the vegetation reestablishes itself, the fauna returns. But this return depends on the availability of resources that the post-fire habitat offers, and on the adaptation conditions and food specificity of the fauna. In September 2021 the Vegetal Reserve of Clube Caça e Pesca Itororó de Uberlândia was exposed to a fire of large proportions, with loss of vegetation of various types of Cerrado phytophysiognomies. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the recolonization of the bird community after the fire in the vereda and cerrado ss physiognomies. To follow the return of the avifauna, a fortnightly survey of the avifauna was carried out from October 2021 to September 2022, using points and transects, in the cerrado and vereda phytophysiognomies to verify the composition and richness of birds, identify how long it took for the bird community to reach stabilization compared to a previous study and whether bird recolonization is associated with post-fire vegetation succession, in addition to analyzing whether there is a sequence of bird return, related to their trophic guilds. The vegetation succession analysis was done by measuring the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which measures the vegetation density. Thus, 137 species, 18 orders and 41 families were registered. The bird community has not stabilized, even after one year of samplings. Monthly species richness is not related to NDVI, however the stabilization of the carnivore and granivore guilds post-fire, is related to vegetational density. However, of the 179 species that had been catalogued in the previous study, 48 species were not recorded, specially Saltatricula atricollis, Melanopareia torquata, Cypsnagra hirundinacea, Neothraupis fasciata, which are typical of the biome and were previously residents in the research areas. It can be concluded that more severe burns can affect the bird community in different ways, and that certain species can take more than a year to reestablish themselves.