Fire and functional traits: Using functional groups of birds and plants to guide management in a fire‐prone, heathy woodland ecosystem

Rainsford, Frederick W.; Kelly, Luke T.; Leonard, Steve; Bennett, Andrew F.

doi:10.1111/ddi.13278

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…This result contrasts markedly with other studies elsewhere in Australia and globally that have found life history trait-mediated responses to disturbances (Gerisch et al, 2012;Haddad et al, 2008;Hansen & Urban, 1992;Hidasi-Neto et al, 2012;Ikin et al, 2019), including wildfire (e.g. Rainsford et al, 2021). For example, Rainsford et al (2021) uncovered evidence of associations between fire, vegetation structure, and the foraging strategy and nesting type of birds in fire-prone heathland in western Victoria.…”

Section: Q2 Do Bird Life History Attributes Explain Recovery Trajecto...contrasting

confidence: 97%

Rapid bird species recovery following high‐severity wildfire but in the absence of early successional specialists

Lindenmayer

Blanchard

Bowd

et al. 2022

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim:The distribution and abundance of forest biodiversity can be shaped by multiple drivers, including disturbances like wildfires. We quantified the influence of wildfire severity and bird life history attributes on temporal patterns of bird site occupancy.Location: Wet eucalypt forests of Victoria, Australia. Methods:We employed a Before, After, Control, Impact experimental design, gathering occupancy data on birds 5 years before, and for 10 years after, a wildfire in 2009.We quantified post-fire decline and then recovery on sites subject to high-severity fire, comparing these temporal patterns with those for birds at sites that were unburnt or burnt at moderate severity. We also tested the influence of life history attributes on bird responses to wildfire. Data were analysed using joint species distribution modelling, accounting for imperfect detection. Results:We found a two-way interaction between fire severity and time period for overall bird site occupancy. The largest change between time periods was on sites burnt at high severity where bird occupancy declined immediately after fire followed by a strong recovery. Occupancy patterns remained largely unchanged on unburnt sites. For many individual species, interactions between fire severity and time period were similar to overall species occupancy. On sites subject to high-severity fire, most species recovered to pre-fire levels within 6 years. We found no evidence of a threeway interaction between fire severity, time period, and life history attributes, with all trait groups of birds examined largely recovered to pre-fire site occupancy levels 10 years post-fire. Main conclusions:The Victorian 2009 wildfires were severe, but their impacts on common bird species were relatively short-lived, with immediate post-fire declines mostly reversed within ~10 years. Rapid post-fire stand regeneration appears a likely driver of these responses and may account for the relatively limited influence of life history attributes on bird species recovery. However, diet influenced bird species occupancy after fire, with nectivores recovering slower than insectivores on sites | 2111 LINDENMAYER Et AL.

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Section: Q2 Do Bird Life History Attributes Explain Recovery Trajecto...contrasting

confidence: 97%

Rapid bird species recovery following high‐severity wildfire but in the absence of early successional specialists

Lindenmayer

Blanchard

Bowd

et al. 2022

Diversity and Distributions

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“…Additionally, many of the restoration methods applied in less degraded starting conditions (e.g. burning, thinning, mowing) could select for specific suites of species adapted to these treatments (Pausas & Bradstock, 2007; Rainsford et al, 2021; Shryock et al, 2014), as well as being broadly more homogenous treatments compared with those employed in complex interventions, resulting in less variable outcomes. These particular low‐degradation methods may also provide more suitable environmental conditions for species found in reference ecosystems and, therefore, result in more consistently successful restoration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrestrial ecosystem restoration increases biodiversity and reduces its variability, but not to reference levels: A global meta‐analysis

et al. 2022

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Ecological restoration projects often have variable and unpredictable outcomes, and these can limit the overall impact on biodiversity. Previous syntheses have investigated restoration effectiveness by comparing average restored conditions to average conditions in unrestored or reference systems. Here, we provide the first quantification of the extent to which restoration affects both the mean and variability of biodiversity outcomes, through a global meta‐analysis of 83 terrestrial restoration studies. We found that, relative to unrestored (degraded) sites, restoration actions increased biodiversity by an average of 20%, while decreasing the variability of biodiversity (quantified by the coefficient of variation) by an average of 14%. As restorations aged, mean biodiversity increased and variability decreased relative to unrestored sites. However, restoration sites remained, on average, 13% below the biodiversity of reference (target) ecosystems, and were characterised by higher (20%) variability. The lower mean and higher variability in biodiversity at restored sites relative to reference sites remained consistent over time, suggesting that sources of variation (e.g. prior land use, restoration practices) have an enduring influence on restoration outcomes. Our results point to the need for new research confronting the causes of variability in restoration outcomes, and close variability and biodiversity gaps between restored and reference conditions.

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“…A landscape composed of a mosaic of patches at different time periods since burning is more pyro-biodiverse than a single large space caused by a megafire. Similarly, in a landscape mosaic composed of forest patches with different resilience to fire [16,17], the occurrence of a large fire can enhance biodiversity by the combination of species adapted to unburnt and burnt habitats [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing How Pre-Fire Habitat Legacy and Post-Fire Management Influence the Resilience of Reptiles to Fire

Muñoz

Felicísimo

Santos

2021

Forests

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At the landscape scale, the Mediterranean region is a mosaic of habitats occupied by plants and animals with different resilience to fire. One of these habitats, the pine plantation, is characterized by its structural simplification and susceptibility to fire. Despite its high flammability, few studies have compared the response of animal communities between pine plantations and other autochthonous woodlands. For five years after a large fire in southwestern Europe, we surveyed reptiles in two natural habitats (oak forest, scrubland) and a pine plantation managed with salvage logging, a post-fire practice which consists of the complete harvesting and removal of death burnt trees. Reptile abundance and species composition were examined to assess differences in the reptile community between these habitats. Differences between burnt and unburnt transects were limited to the first year after the fire, while, over the entire five-year period, differences in species composition and abundance were due to vegetation type instead of fire. The pine logged area showed a delay in the recovery of vegetation and also in the appearance of many reptile species after the fire. At the reptile species level, we found evidence of both positive responses to fire (for lizards with high heliothermic activity) and negative ones (for specialist snake species). Overall, our results confirm the resilience of the reptile community to fire. The mosaic of habitats in the Mediterranean region and the openness caused by fire can increase the reptile biodiversity (landscape- plus pyro-diversity effects), but some practices such as salvage logging coupled with fire regime shifts (larger and more frequent fires) can compromise the conservation of the biodiversity in fire-prone regions.

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Fire and functional traits: Using functional groups of birds and plants to guide management in a fire‐prone, heathy woodland ecosystem

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 13 publications

References 63 publications

Rapid bird species recovery following high‐severity wildfire but in the absence of early successional specialists

Rapid bird species recovery following high‐severity wildfire but in the absence of early successional specialists

Terrestrial ecosystem restoration increases biodiversity and reduces its variability, but not to reference levels: A global meta‐analysis

Analysing How Pre-Fire Habitat Legacy and Post-Fire Management Influence the Resilience of Reptiles to Fire

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