Les effets du feu sur les Arthropodes de savane

The effect of bush-fires on the Arthropod fauna of the Lamto savanna has been studied in 1965-66. Fires do not act at random upon Invertebrate populations. The day following an early bush fire (January) 64 % of the individual animals were still living, but did not represent more than 32 % of the initial biomass. Small species survive initially better than large ones. Arthropods like spiders and cockroaches, which burrows themselves at the slightest danger, do not suffer immediately from the fire. Good flyers move away, some of them being eaten by birds. One month later the trend is reversed : good flyers move in and the numbers of ground-living arthropods decline. This is due to the disappearance of the litter and the subsequent changes of the micro-climatic conditions at the surface of the ground. At any time of the year Arthropod numbers and biomasses are always smaller in regularly burnt savannas that in unburnt ones.Gillon Dominique. Les effets du feu sur les Arthropodes de savane. In: La Terre et La Vie, Revue d'Histoire naturelle, tome 24, n°1, 1970. pp. 80-93