Prescribed burning impacts avian diversity and disadvantages woodland-specialist birds unless long-unburnt habitat is retained

Prowse, Thomas A. A.; Collard, Stuart J.; Blackwood, Alice; O’Connor, Patrick J.; Delean, Steven; Barnes, Megan; Cassey, Phillip; Possingham, Hugh P.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2017.09.005

Cited by 25 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The impact of fire will depend on fire severity, frequency and the spatial configuration and extent of burned and unburned habitat (Prowse et al . ). For example, a single severe fire on Flinders Island in 2003 (Appendix S3) that burned an entire patch of refuge habitat has likely resulted in another local extinction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

All the eggs in one basket: Are island refuges securing an endangered passerine?

Webb¹,

Alves

Tulloch³

et al. 2018

Austral Ecology

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Refuges for threatened species are important to prevent species extinction. They provide protection from a range of environmental and biotic stressors, and ideally provide protection against all threatening processes. However, for some species it may not be clear why some areas are refuges and others are not. The fortyspotted pardalote (Pardalotus quadragintus) is an endangered, sedentary, cryptic and specialised bird endemic to the island of Tasmania, Australia. Having undergone an extreme range contraction over the past century the species is now mostly confined to a few small offshore island refuges. Key threatening processes to the species include habitat loss, wildfire, competition and predation. The ways in which these processes have molded the species' contemporary range have not been clearly evaluated. Furthermore, the security of the remnant population within refuges is uncertain. To overcome this uncertainty we assessed key threats and established the population status in known refuges by developing a robust survey protocol within an occupancy modelling framework. We discuss our results in the context of planning trial reintroductions of this endangered species in suitable habitat across its former range. We found very high occupancy rates (0.75-0.96) at two refuges and in suitable conditions, the species was highly detectable (p, 0.43-0.77). At a third location our surveys indicated a local extinction, likely due to recent wildfire. We demonstrate that all refuges are at high risk of one or more threatening processes and the current distribution across island refuges is unlikely to secure the species from extinction. We identified large areas of potential habitat across the species' former mainland range, but these are likely too distant from source populations for natural recolonisation. We propose that establishing new populations of forty-spotted pardalotes via reintroduction is essential to secure the species and that this is best achieved while robust source populations still exist.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

All the eggs in one basket: Are island refuges securing an endangered passerine?

Webb¹,

Alves

Tulloch³

et al. 2018

Austral Ecology

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“…), South (Prowse et al . ) and Western (Bradshaw & Bradshaw ) Australia. As such, retaining a greater extent of long‐unburnt vegetation to protect native animals is increasingly evident in Australian ecosystems (Kelly et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More long‐unburnt forest will benefit mammals in Australian sub‐alpine forests and woodlands

et al. 2019

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The composition of mammalian communities in Australia's Eucalyptus forests and woodlands is known to be affected by fire. However, there are few published studies that compare mammal assemblages in recently burnt and long-unburnt forests because there are few areas with long-term fire history data. Understanding the value of long-unburnt forest is important because it is becoming rare in fire-prone regions of the world, such as south-eastern Australia, partly because of the widespread use of prescribed burning. We deployed wildlife cameras for 28 trap-nights at each of 81 sites that ranged from 0.5 to at least 96 years since the last fire. We recorded a total of 15 native mammal species. At least one mammal species was recorded at 80 of the 81 sites. Significantly more species were detected at long-unburnt sites (>96 years since fire) than sites 0.5-12 years since the last fire. Species composition varied significantly between sites 0.5-12 years and >96 years since the last fire but did not vary between sites 0.5-2 years and 6-12 years since the last fire. Although there was not one category of time since fire (i.e. 0.5-2 years, 6-12 years and >96 years) in which all 15 native mammal species were recorded, long-unburnt sites were significantly more important for the occurrence of seven mammal species; intermediate and recently burnt sites were significantly more important for one species. Our results suggested that, while a diversity of fire ages is important for conserving mammalian diversity, long-unburnt forests and woodlands (which comprised only 8% of our study area) are disproportionately important for mammal conservation. Our results add to a growing body of the literature from south-eastern Australia, suggesting that remaining long-unburnt forest should be afforded protection from fire and more forest should be transitioned to long unburnt.

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“…The main type of biodiversity data available in fire‐prone regions is that describing the occurrence of species: either presence data derived from wildlife atlases (Reside et al ., ; Connell et al ., ), or presence/absence or abundance data derived from research or monitoring programmes (Hale et al ., ; Prowse et al ., ). Occurrence data can allow researchers to examine questions relating to animal movement indirectly by assessing occurrence in relation to fire history.…”

Section: Data Needs Relating To Animal Movement In Fire‐prone Landscapesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Animal movements in fire‐prone landscapes

et al. 2018

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Movement is a trait of fundamental importance in ecosystems subject to frequent disturbances, such as fire-prone ecosystems. Despite this, the role of movement in facilitating responses to fire has received little attention. Herein, we consider how animal movement interacts with fire history to shape species distributions. We consider how fire affects movement between habitat patches of differing fire histories that occur across a range of spatial and temporal scales, from daily foraging bouts to infrequent dispersal events, and annual migrations. We review animal movements in response to the immediate and abrupt impacts of fire, and the longer-term successional changes that fires set in train. We discuss how the novel threats of altered fire regimes, landscape fragmentation, and invasive species result in suboptimal movements that drive populations downwards. We then outline the types of data needed to study animal movements in relation to fire and novel threats, to hasten the integration of movement ecology and fire ecology. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for the integration of movement ecology and fire ecology by identifying key research questions that emerge from our synthesis of animal movements in fire-prone ecosystems.

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Prescribed burning impacts avian diversity and disadvantages woodland-specialist birds unless long-unburnt habitat is retained

Cited by 25 publications

References 46 publications

All the eggs in one basket: Are island refuges securing an endangered passerine?

All the eggs in one basket: Are island refuges securing an endangered passerine?

More long‐unburnt forest will benefit mammals in Australian sub‐alpine forests and woodlands

Animal movements in fire‐prone landscapes

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