Fire in Montiferru, the study of the researchers: «Taxes and holly disappeared, bracken fern alarm in the pastures»

A study that puts the "scars" of the area affected by the terrible fire in Montiferru in 2021 under a magnifying glass .

The largest fire that broke out in Italy that year, and one of the most impressive that the island remembers with 12 thousand hectares of pastures, woods and shrubs gone up in smoke , devastated farms and livestock, decimated farm animals and wildlife.

A team of researchers from the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences of the University of Cagliari , and from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), has in fact investigated, with respect to the severity of the damage occurred in the different areas concerned, the response of the natural vegetation one year after the fire , to understand how and with what speed the open "wound" is healing.

The study, entitled "Short-term effects and vegetation response after a megafire in a Mediterranean area", was published last December 19 in the scientific journal Land and is now freely accessible on the web .

This is the first scientific study on the effects of the Montiferru fire published in an international journal , and it is one of the first attempts to quantify the short-term response of vegetation after a megafire - this is how a fire is defined when the affected vegetation exceeds 10,000 hectares , ed – in a traditional Mediterranean agro-forestry-pastoral landscape.

The analysis, which saw the integration of satellite data and field surveys carried out at 195 sampling sites , mainly focused on the early stages of recovery of the natural vegetation with the aim of assessing its resilience .

The research demonstrated the remarkable natural resilience of vegetation over almost the entire area , and the importance of extensive and traditional land uses for landscape resilience .

The study also highlighted more sensitive areas that deserve more attention.

«In some areas – explains Ivo Rossetti , one of the authors of the research, to Unionesarda.it – the recovery of the vegetation is more stunted or even absent, exposing the soil to a greater risk of erosion. These are the areas on the edges of the area affected by the fires , where regeneration has not been noticed ».

Then there is the alarm for some plant species linked to habitats of particular naturalistic value and which have not been found during the monitoring , indicating a possible local loss of biodiversity.

« Tasso and holly – specifies Rossetti – the species not currently found during field monitoring . However, these are short-term analyzes and therefore the hope is that they can reappear in the medium and long term ».

Other species, on the other hand, have spread rapidly in environments where they were previously less abundant , demonstrating their ability to take advantage of the conditions created by the passage of fire. With some critical issues to consider. "In the pastures - adds Rossetti - the bracken fern has become dominant, a toxic species that can create problems for livestock".

(Unioneonline/vl)