Short-term effects of prescribed fires on riparian arthropods around wetlands in north central Florida

Prescribed fires are an essential land management tool used in ecosystems throughout the southeastern U.S. It is well-documented that fires impact terrestrial and sometimes adjacent aquatic ecosystems. Connecting these habitats is the riparian zone, a transitional area on the edge of water bodies characterized by high nutrient cycling, mixed vegetation, and moisture content that varies from the adjacent upland environments. Riparian zones are often important corridors for wildlife escaping fire, as their mixed vegetation protects from an adjacent burning terrestrial ecosystem. Spiders frequently create webs in riparian areas to hunt emerging aquatic prey and other terrestrial prey and are biological indicators of riparian food web health and productivity. In this study, we investigated how prescribed fires impact arthropods in riparian zones. We hypothesized that spider and arthropod prey abundances would increase in the riparian zone following prescribed fires. We used pan traps to sample riparian zone arthropods surrounding six wetlands in north central Florida two weeks before and two weeks and one month after burns. There was an initial decrease then substantial increase in springtail abundance and biomass surrounding burned wetlands. There was no evidence of an increase in the abundance of spiders following prescribed fires, with marginal evidence that spider biomass decreased one month after the prescribed burn, indicating that spiders were smaller surrounding burned wetlands. Our work provides a basis for a much larger investigation into the short-term effects of prescribed fire on riparian ecosystems.