Short-term vegetation response to wildfire in the eastern Sierra Nevada: Implications for recovering an endangered ungulate

Greene, L. W.; Hebblewhite, Mark; Stephenson, Thomas R.

doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2012.06.001

Cited by 28 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Johnson et al () found evidence that Sierra bighorn sub‐populations facing greater predation risk selected safer terrain than did populations at lower risk, but that risk aversion in Sierra sheep decreased as winter progressed, presumably as a result of accumulated nutritional stress. Additionally, Greene et al () found evidence of behavioural responses across years, demonstrating changes in selection as a function of predation risk across two winters for two Sierra bighorn populations. While we expect these differences in selection to be smaller than those observed between residents and migrants, they may nonetheless offer key insights into the dynamics of partial migration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The three novel covariates we included were an index of winter plant productivity, an index of winter snow cover and an index of the size of snow‐free patches. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and fractional snow cover describe winter forage availability and the severity of winter conditions (Greene et al, ; Pettorelli et al, ). To create an index of plant nutrition available in winter, we averaged NDVI values derived from LANDSAT 7 images (30 m 2 pixels) in winter months (January 1–April 1) over a 11‐year span (2000–2011) after censoring pixels in which fractional snow cover met or exceeded 0.10.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Variables of previously demonstrated importance included elevation (m), slope (degrees), vector ruggedness measure (VRM, higher values indicating greater ruggedness; Sappington, Longshore, & Thompson, ), solar radiation index (SRI, higher values indicating greater received solar energy; Keating, Gogan, Vore, & Irby, ), escape terrain (categorical – slope > 30°; Johnson, Bleich, & Stephenson, ), distance to escape terrain (m), and trees (categorical – accounting for visibility and selection for NDVI; Greene et al, ; Johnson et al, ). Based on previous work from our system, we also included quadratic terms to allow for selection for intermediate values of NDVI, slope and elevation (Greene et al, ; Johnson et al, ; Manly et al, ). For example, bighorn may select steep slopes for predator avoidance, but may also avoid the steepest slopes because these limit movement.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Habitat predicts local prevalence of migratory behaviour in an alpine ungulate

Spitz

Hebblewhite

Stephenson

2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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The resource hierarchy hypothesis predicts that the most important factors limiting a species’ distribution act at the coarsest spatial scales. However, resource selection behaviour affords mobile organisms the opportunity to adopt a range of tactics for navigating spatial trade‐offs between competing biotic and abiotic constraints. Throughout the animal kingdom, partial migration (where some individuals migrate, and others remain resident year round) offers a pervasive example of such behavioural polymorphism. Identifying the differences between these behaviours is therefore central to understanding the conditions (habitat) needed to sustain migrant and resident populations. Here we test an extension of the resource hierarchy hypothesis. We hypothesized that rather than responding to a single limiting factor, migration and residency represent contrasting scale‐specific approaches to managing trade‐offs between forage, predation risk and severe winter conditions. Furthermore, we predicted that the distribution of habitat selected by migrants and residents is predictive of the local prevalence of migratory behaviour. To test these hypotheses, we quantified migratory status‐ (resident/migrant) and season‐specific (winter/summer) differences in resource selection by eight populations of federally endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis sierrae across three spatial scales: population range, individual range and within individual range. We then integrated these spatial predictions to produce separate spatial predictions of migrant and resident winter habitat. As predicted, model selection provided strong evidence for the importance of status‐specific differences in resource selection. Residents showed stronger coarse‐scale selection for terrain associated with predator avoidance and stronger fine‐scale selection for greenness, while in migrants this pattern was reversed. Availability of migrant habitat predicted the local prevalence of migration (top model pseudo R2 of .87). Our ability to respond to global declines of migratory species depends on improving our understanding of the conditions required to maintain migratory behaviour. Through explicitly contrasting migrant and resident behaviour, our results illustrate seasonal differences in migrant and resident habitat and how these two behaviours represent responses to different limiting conditions. Our analyses provides a novel empirical basis for assessing the local prevalence of migratory behaviour across large landscapes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Habitat predicts local prevalence of migratory behaviour in an alpine ungulate

Spitz

Hebblewhite

Stephenson

2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…Unfortunately, in environments with vertical vegetative structure, post‐fire increases in temperature, forage quality, and visibility are correlated making it difficult to disentangle the relative importance of potential mechanistic drivers of herbivore behavior (Greene et al. ). We were, consequently, unable to distinguish between anthropogenic disturbance, thermoregulation, and predation risk as possible drivers of commuting behavior, and recommend this as a direction for future research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire history influences large‐herbivore behavior at circadian, seasonal, and successional scales

Spitz

Clark

Wisdom

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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Recurrent environmental changes often prompt animals to alter their behavior leading to predictable patterns across a range of temporal scales. The nested nature of circadian and seasonal behavior complicates tests for effects of rarer disturbance events like fire. Fire can dramatically alter plant community structure, with important knock-on effects at higher trophic levels, but the strength and timing of fire's effects on herbivores remain unclear. We combined prescribed fire treatments with fine-scale location data to quantify herbivore responses to fire across three temporal scales. Between 2001 and 2003, 26 stands of fir (Abies spp.) and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) were thinned and burned; 27 similar stands were left untreated as experimental controls. Analyzing female elk (Cervus canadensis) locations across 21 yr (1996-2016), we found crepuscular, seasonal, and successional shifts in behavioral responses to fire. Elk displayed "commuting" behavior, avoiding burns during the day, but selecting them at night. Elk selection for burns was strongest in early summer and the relative probability of elk using burns peaked quickly (5 yr post burn) before gradually returning to pre-treatment levels (15 yr post burn). Our results demonstrate that fire history has complex, persistent effects on herbivore behavior, and suggest that herbivores benefit from heterogeneous landscapes containing a range of successional stages.

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“…The general plant response to fire has been well documented in North America (Peek et al 1979, Tracy and McNaughton 1997, Sachro et al 2005, Van Dyke and Darragh 2007, Greene et al 2012.…”

Section: Response Of Vegetation To Firementioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of prescribed fire on Stone's sheep and Rocky Mountain elk: Forage characteristics and resource separation.

Sittler¹

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All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL U SER S The quality of this reproduction is dep en d en t upon the quality of the copy submitted.In the unlikely even t that the author did not sen d a com plete manuscript and there are m issing p a g es, th e se will be noted. Also, if material had to be rem oved, a note will indicate the deletion. Landsat imageiy, survey flights and GPS telemetry at a landscape scale. By one year after burning, forage digestibility and rates of forage growth were higher on burned than unbumed areas. At both scales Stone's sheep and elk always used bums more than control areas in winter. UMIStone's sheep and elk appeared to partition their use o f the landscape through topography and land cover. Increased use o f burned areas suggests that prescribed fire enhanced habitat value for grazing ungulates in the short-term. By altering animal distributions, however, the use of prescribed fire has the potential to change complex predator-prey interactions in northern BC.

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Short-term vegetation response to wildfire in the eastern Sierra Nevada: Implications for recovering an endangered ungulate

Cited by 28 publications

References 37 publications

Habitat predicts local prevalence of migratory behaviour in an alpine ungulate

Habitat predicts local prevalence of migratory behaviour in an alpine ungulate

Fire history influences large‐herbivore behavior at circadian, seasonal, and successional scales

Influence of prescribed fire on Stone's sheep and Rocky Mountain elk: Forage characteristics and resource separation.

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