-1 The short-term impact of forest fire on soil invertebrates in the miombo G. SILESHI * and P.L. MAFONGOYA World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Zambia-ICRAF Agroforestry Project, P.O. Box 510089, Chipata, Zambia; *Author for correspondence: Address: P.O. Box 511118, Chipata, Zambia. (e-mail: sgwelde@yahoo.com or gsileshi@zamtel.zm) Received 29 November 2004; accepted in revised form 31 March 2005 Key words: Forest fire, Macrofauna, Miombo, Soil invertebrates Abstract. A study was conducted in eastern Zambia to assess the impact of fire on soil invertebrate communities between December 2003 and November 2004. Soil samples were collected 4 times from secondary miombo forest patches that were burnt in July–September 2003 and 2004 and patches not affected by fire. Macro-invertebrates were hand-sorted from soil samples and their population densities computed. The total number of orders per sample and the population density of Annelida, Chilopoda, Arachnida and some Hexapoda were lower under burnt forest patches compared to unburnt ones throughout the study period. Although the difference between burnt and unburnt patches in populations of other taxa such as Lepidoptera and Diptera remained below the threshold of statistical significance, fire appeared to have reduced their densities. It is concluded that fire can alter the structure of soil invertebrate communities through direct mortality or by its effect on availability of food resources. Further studies are needed to establish the linkage between fire, invertebrate community structure, ecosystem processes and floristic composition of the miombo. Introduction The miombo is the largest continuous dry deciduous forest in the world extending across much of central, eastern and southern Africa including Angola, DR Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Campbell et al. 1996). It is a woodland vegetation dominated by slow growing mainly deciduous trees of the genus Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia forming a 15–20 m high, single storey, light but closed canopy (Lawton 1978). Recently it has been identified as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots that need a global conservation strategy (Mittermeier et al. 2003). Fire is the major ecological factor, which regulates the dynamics of miombo ecosystem (Lawton 1978). Forest fires are almost invariably started by people (Frost 1996) delib- erately for instance by livestock owners seeking to promote a green flush for their animals, by rodent hunters (Ajayi and Kwesiga 2003), by people creating firebreaks around their homesteads, people clearing land for cultivation, smoking out beehives or making charcoal in the forest (Piearce 1986). It is generally agreed that frequent uncontrolled fires are harmful both to vegeta- tion and soil (White 1993). Biodiversity and Conservation (2006) Ó Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10531-005-5411-z