Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: DAIANA FERREIRA DIAS

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
DISCENTE : DAIANA FERREIRA DIAS
DATA : 01/12/2025
HORA: 08:00
LOCAL: CELBE/HÍBRIDO
TÍTULO:

INFLUENCE OF FIRE DYNAMICS ON ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN THE SUBREGION OF THE PANTANAL OF CÁCERES (MT). 

PALAVRAS-CHAVES:

Pantanal; wildfires; soil carbon; land use and land cover; landscape modification; forest fires; climate change; organic carbon.

PÁGINAS: 60
GRANDE ÁREA: Outra
ÁREA: Ciências Ambientais
RESUMO:

The Pantanal of Cáceres (MT), a sub-region of the world’s largest tropical wetland, has undergone profound transformations in its ecological dynamics, largely due to the intensification of wildfires and climate change. The combination of severe droughts, reduced water availability, and land-use changes has altered the fire regime and compromised essential ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity maintenance. In this context, this dissertation examines the influence of wildfire dynamics on selected ecosystem services in the Cáceres sub-region of the Pantanal, with emphasis on the relationship between land tenure structure, environmental factors, and the spatial variation of soil carbon. The first article, “Fire and Frontiers: an inversion of the flames in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso,” investigated the relationship between rural property size and fire incidence from 1985 to 2023, using data from MapBiomas Fire and the Rural Environmental Registry. Our findings reveal a structural shift in wildfire distribution. Between 1985 and 1995, fires were largely concentrated in small properties (<4 fiscal modules) on the biome’s edges, contrasting with the period from 2000 to 2023, when fires moved toward large properties (>15 fiscal modules) located in the central Pantanal of the study area. This “inversion of the flames” reflects land-tenure and ecological transformations linked to the contraction of flooded areas and the intensification of extensive cattle ranching. Although numerically fewer, large properties accounted for the largest burned areas, especially during the critical 2020–2021 events, when they exceeded 500,000 hectares. The second article, “Flammable Landscapes: ecological transitions and climate vulnerability in the Pantanal of Cáceres,” deepened the analysis of the environmental determinants of fire by applying Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) with climatic variables (ERA5-Land) and land-use/land-cover data. The results showed that the combination of flooded grasslands, pasture, and floodplain forest was the most effective in explaining the burned area, accounting for 65.6% of the observed variation. We identified that the drastic reduction of flooded areas and the expansion of pastures created ideal conditions for fire propagation, while El Niño and La Niña had no significant influence. These findings reinforce that fire in the Pantanal does not result solely from local land-management practices, but from complex interactions among climate, hydrology, and land use, amplifying socio-environmental vulnerabilities. The third article, “Influence of fire on soil carbon stocks in landscapes of the Pantanal of Cáceres (MT),” presents partial results showing no statistically significant differences in carbon content between burned and unburned areas, both in surface (0–5 cm) and subsurface (10–15 cm) layers. This stability suggests resilience of the Pantanal’s humid and seasonally flooded soils, in which high moisture and stable organic matter limit carbon losses even after fire events. Overall, the integrated findings of this dissertation show that wildfires in the Pantanal of Cáceres are no longer localized phenomena but have become structuring processes in the landscape, with direct implications for carbon stocks and the sustainability of the biome. By combining temporal, spatial, and edaphic analyses, this work contributes to understanding the ecological resilience of wetland systems in the face of climate change, particularly in light of SDG 13 (target 13.2) and SDG 15 (target 15.3).

MEMBROS DA BANCA:
Interno - 118188003 - ERNANDES SOBREIRA OLIVEIRA JUNIOR
Interna - 48690002 - SOLANGE KIMIE IKEDA CASTRILLON
Interno - 118181001 - WILKINSON LOPES LAZARO
Externo à Instituição - 027.559.449-19 - DANIEL LUIZ ZANELLA KANTEK - ICMBio