Soil microarthropods on post-fire pine forest on Mount Carmel, Israel

Soil microarthropods of pine forests in Israel were investigated for the first time. Eighty percent of them belonged to the orders Acari and Collembola, the remainder to another 18 orders. In the second post-fire year only 11 orders were presented. The groups Protura, Palpigradi and Pauropoda in Israel are described here for the first time. Protura and Pauropoda were quite common in the natural forest, but disappeared almost entirely after the fire. By contrast, the pseudococcid Rhizoecus sp., and to some extent also Palpigradi, were rare in unburned forest but behaved as pioneers and flourished two years post fire. The Collembolan fauna were studied in more detail and four genera new to Israel have been identified already. The family Poduridae was the most common Collembolan in natural forest, but they almost disappeared after the fire, while the entomobryoid springtails did not change too much. It was concluded that soil microarthropods play an important role in post-fire succession and are good indicators of resilience processes.