POSTDIV: Postfire biodiversity database
In the summer of 2012, two wildfires affected Mediterranean ecosystems in the eastern Iberian Peninsula, the Andilla fire and the Cortes fire [1]. The size of these fires (> 20,000 ha each) was at the extreme of the historical variability (megafires sensus [2]). In 2013, we set up 12 plots per fire, covering burned vegetation at different distances from the fire perimeter and unburned vegetation. In each plot, we followed the postfire recovery of arthropods, reptiles (including their ectoparasites), and plants for 2 to 5 years. Here we present the resulting database (POSTDIV) of taxon occurrence and abundance in the burned and unburned areas [3]. Currently, POSTDIV totals 19,906 records for 457 arthropod taxa (113,681 individuals), 12 reptile taxa (503 individuals), 4 reptile parasites (234 individuals), and 518 plant taxa (cover-abundance). We provide examples in the R language to query the database.
References
[1] Pausas J.G. 2012. Life 15 days after the large fires in Valencia. jgpausas.blogs.uv.es/2012/07/22/
[2] Pausas J.G. & Keeley J.E. 2021. Wildfires and global change. Front. Ecol. Environ. 19: 387-395. [doi | wiley | pdf]
[3] Pausas et al. 2023. Postfire biodiversity database for eastern Iberia. Sci Data 10:872 [doi | pdf | pdf | data: figshare]