Post-fire beetle succession in a biodiversity hotspot: Białowieża Primeval Forest

Abstract Fires can heavily impact forest ecosystems but fire consequences for animal communities at burned and control sites are rarely investigated in natural forests. Here we present a 10-year study of post-fire beetle succession in natural ecosystem of Bialowieza Primeval Forest, Poland, being a hotspot for beetle fauna. We sampled beetles at burned and unburned (control) sites and compared local alpha and regional gamma diversity between treatments and over time. In total, 27,958 individuals belonging to 630 beetle species were recorded. Average species richness (alpha diversity) and density per sample was higher in burned forest than in control sites, and this difference was especially…