Collapse rates of hollow-bearing trees following low intensity prescription burns in the Pilliga forests, New South Wales

Parnaby, Harry; Lunney, Daniel; Shannon, Ian; Fleming, M.

doi:10.1071/pc100209

Cited by 35 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Lastly, these major changes to vegetation structure resulting from severe fire will influence the availability and quality of habitat for dependent fauna, including tree hollows and coarse woody debris (Chambers and Mast 2005;Parnaby et al 2010;Lindenmayer et al 2013;Bassett et al 2015). Hence quantifying the overstorey response to fire events of varied severity over a landscape scale will improve understanding of the likely community responses (Belote et al 2015) and allow informed decisions for post-fire management for conservation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of tree species to a severe fire indicate major structural change to Eucalyptus–Callitris forests

et al. 2016

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In many fire-prone habitats fires may be relatively frequent but of low severity or small areal extent. However, these same habitats may occasionally be subject to large, severe fires when extreme conditions and ignitions coincide. After >50 years without significant fire, a mega-fire burnt >50,000 ha of Eucalyptus-Callitris forest in southeastern Australia. We assessed the impact of this fire on vegetation structure at a landscape scale by quantifying post-fire responses of 11 tree species over 97 sites with varying fire severity. At low severity over 60 % of Callitris trees survived by escaping crown scorch, but they were almost all killed at higher severity. Fewer eucalypts escaped crown scorch (33 % at low fire severity) but there was no evidence of mortality due to the fire. Most eucalypts were topkilled (55 %) but less frequently at low (39 %) compared to moderate (55 %) or high (74 %) fire severity. Larger trees were less likely to suffer topkill. Taken together these results indicate that this wildfire has caused major changes to vegetation structure within the area burnt. Death of Callitris trees reduced canopy tree density by 25 % and a high proportion of eucalypt topkill has resulted in a shorter, more open forest. Recovery of the tallest structural components through eucalypt regrowth and maturation of Callitris may require fire-free intervals of several decades. Any fires within this period may extend the recovery time and lead to declines in populations of the obligate-seeding Callitris species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of tree species to a severe fire indicate major structural change to Eucalyptus–Callitris forests

et al. 2016

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“…Eyre et al (2010) found that time since wildfire was second only to logging as a predictor of the number of hollow-bearing trees remaining in dry mixed eucalypt forests of southern Queensland. We found high collapse rates of hollow-bearing trees resulting from mild prescription burns in the Pilliga (Parnaby et al 2010). These burns caused a disproportionate loss of trees with hollows in the largest hollow entrance size classes (> 11 cm) -85% of all hollow-bearing trees that collapsed on our study plots were either in the older age classes or were live stags (see Appendix, Photos 5-6).…”

Section: Issue 3: Impact Of Fire On the Loss Of Hollow-bearing Treesmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…A number of researchers have concluded that local or regional extinctions of hollow-dependent fauna, such as bats, are likely to result from a number of logging practices on public land throughout southern Australia unless steps are taken to reduce the loss of hollow-bearing trees (e.g. Lunney et al 1988;Norton and Kirkpatrick 1995;Recher 1996;Parnaby and Hamilton-Smith 2004). …”

Section: A) the Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Loss of hollow-bearing trees from land clearing, and by forestry activities such as logging and firewood operations, are two of the more obvious of a wide range of management issues identified for Australian hollow-using bats, which are common to temperate zone hollow-using bats of other continents (Lewis 1995;Sedgeley and O'Donnell 1999;Kunz and Lumsden 2003). Other potential management issues include the availability of surface water (Birt et al 2001); changes to the spatial relationships between foraging and roosting resources (Law and Dickman 1998); changes to stand structural complexity (Brown et al 1997), increased stand clutter and simplification of stand structural complexity by removal of old growth elements such as logs (Lindenmayer et al 2002) and old trees (McElhinny et al 2006); competition for hollow resources from other fauna (Richards 1991), accumulation of chemical contaminants in body tissues (Hall 1990), global warming (Brereton et al 1995;Bullen 2005) and impacts of fire on habitat structure, including the loss of hollow trees from prescribed burns (Richards and Hall 1998;Parnaby et al . 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Four issues influencing the management of hollow-using bats of the Pilliga forests of inland New South Wales

Parnaby¹,

Lunney²,

Fleming³

2011

The Biology and Conservation of Australasian Bats

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Four issues influencing the management of hollow-dependent bats are examined for the Pilliga forests of inland NSW. These are: 1) the longevity of eucalypts and implications for the strategies for retaining hollow trees; 2) the condition of the forests and woodlands of the Pilliga at the time of European settlement, focusing on densities of hollow trees; 3) the impact of fire and climate change on loss of tree hollows; and 4) the implications of recent ecological research on perceptions of the vulnerability of hollow-using bats. We argue the need for an urgent reevaluation of these issues. Average tree longevity is likely to be much greater than previously acknowledged, the pre-European Pilliga was a forest with hollow-bearing tree densities approximating those of coastal and montane forests, rather than being an open woodland; and fire will significantly reduce the numbers of hollow trees. Consequently, hollow-using bats in the Pilliga are more vulnerable than previously realised, and densities of hollow-bearing trees need to be quantified across tenures. We suggest that densities of hollow-bearing trees to be retained under current logging prescriptions need to be revised upwards. A cross-tenure approach to management is needed, given that the Pilliga forests are about evenly divided between forest managed by DECCW and by Forests NSW, i.e. the difference between conservation and commercial priorities. We conclude that the protection of remaining hollow-bearing trees is the only effective option for managing the hollow-dependent bats in the Pilliga. We predict that local extinctions of a range of hollow-using bat species will occur without active management and monitoring to protect the remaining hollow-bearing trees, and the intermediate-aged, hollowrecruit trees, from logging and fire.

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“…However, fire may expand hollows by consuming internal material, as evidenced by internal charring [32]. These two fire effects are of ecological importance as they can affect not only CWD availability and structural integrity, but also affect hollow suitability and availability for many hollow dependant organisms [33,34]. Table 1.…”

Section: Coarse Woody Debris and Hollow Surveysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Effect of Prescribed Burning Regimes and Logging on Coarse Woody Debris in South-Eastern Australia

Stares

Collins

Law

et al. 2018

Forests

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Coarse woody debris (CWD) is vital within forest ecosystems for an array of fauna. Forest management practices, such as prescribed burning and logging, influence the creation or loss of CWD. We examined the effect of long-term prescribed burning and logging on (i) the abundance of hollow-bearing CWD, (ii) the volume of CWD in different decay classes, (iii) the probability of hollow presence, and (iv) the size of hollows at a long-term (28 years) experimental site. Volume of CWD in moderate and advanced stages of decomposition decreased with increasing fire frequency while moderately decomposed material was higher in logged plots. The likelihood of a hollow being present increased with diameter and decreased when CWD was extensively charred. Hollow size was smaller when material was externally charred but larger when charring affected a pre-existing hollow. Increases in moderately decayed CWD reflect a pulse input of unmerchantable timber following the one-off logging event 28 years ago, though future loss of mature trees may lead to reduced input rates of woody debris in the future. Charring effects on hollow formation, increasing hollow size but decreasing overall presence, demonstrate the complex effect of fire on this resource. Our research highlights the need to develop a fundamental understanding of CWD input and loss dynamics in response to fire and logging in order to predict changes to this resource under a broad range of management scenarios.

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Collapse rates of hollow-bearing trees following low intensity prescription burns in the Pilliga forests, New South Wales

Cited by 35 publications

References 29 publications

Responses of tree species to a severe fire indicate major structural change to Eucalyptus–Callitris forests

Responses of tree species to a severe fire indicate major structural change to Eucalyptus–Callitris forests

Four issues influencing the management of hollow-using bats of the Pilliga forests of inland New South Wales

Long-Term Effect of Prescribed Burning Regimes and Logging on Coarse Woody Debris in South-Eastern Australia

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