Dirt roads and fire breaks produce no edge effects on litter-dwelling arthropods in a tropical dry-forest: a case study

Abstract

Edge effects threaten organisms and ecological processes in habitat remnants, but they have been poorly studied in non-humid forests such as cerradao, a tropical dry forest sometimes derived from fire-suppressed savanna in Brazil. The diverse ecosystem functions performed by arthropods may be disrupted by edge effects, and there is pressing need for more studies on this subject. We sampled fragments of cerradao facing either a road or fire breaks, assessing edge effects in: beta diversity and community composition of epigaeic (litter-dwelling) arthropod orders, ant species, and ant functional groups; ant species richness and diversity; leaf litter depth; and colony residence time of a predatory ground-dwelling ant, Odontomachus chelifer (Ponerinae). None of the variables measured differed between edge and interior of the sites sampled. Dry forests have high micro-climatic variations caused by discontinuities in the canopy cover and, as such, changes in abiotic variables in cerradao edges might not be as clear as those observed in tropical rainforests. Our study demonstrates that edge effects may not be so prevalent in cerradao facing roads or fire breaks, which possibly increases the chances of survival of a higher fraction of the original arthropod fauna compared to rainforest fragments.