EFFECTS OF FIRE HISTORY UPON SOIL MACROARTHROPOD COMMUNITIES IN PINUS HALEPENSIS STANDS IN ATTICA, GREECE

The composition of the soil macroarthropod community was studied in three forest stands which constitute a gradient of increased fire frequency. All stands were adjacent to each other, on the foothills of Mt. Penteli, Attica, Greece, and they shared similar physiography, climate, altitude, while their original pre-fire vegetation was a well-developed Pinus halepensis forest. The stands were severely burned by a large fire early in summer 1995. Two of them had been burned previously: the first in 1978 and the second in 1978 and 1987. Sampling was carried out during the 2nd year after the last fire event. Although the phenology of soil macroarthropods was not altered in frequently burned stands, the number of taxa collected, as well as their population size, was extremely low. Canonical Correspondence Analysis showed that fire frequency does not directly affect soil arthropod communities, but influences them through increased abundance of specific plant groups, i.e., phrygana vegetation and legumes. Seasonality of climate seemed to be another significant factor controlling the structure of macroarthropod communities in the stands studied.