Fire Effects on Wildlife
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Transcript of Fire Effects on Wildlife
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Fire Effects on Wildlife
18 September 2006
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Direct Effects• Few studies, marked re-capture approach ideal
– Body size and mobility, i.e. burrowing, influence direct mortality
• Life cycle stages are impacted differently• Depends on fire regime
– Frequency, intensity, extent, and season– Extent-small area, greater ability to repopulate
• Must look at populations rather than the individual
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Indirect Effects
• Fire severity and resulting successional patterns dictate wildlife habitats and the effect on wildlife
• Importance of fire regime
• (+/-) Consumer response is species dependent, must consider mechanisms at work
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TTYP: What are the indirect effects of fire on wildlife habitat?
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Mechanisms of post-fire population change
• Availability of food resources and changes in cover regulate population response
• Sorting out these mechanisms is a research challenge
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Understanding the Consumer Response to Food Resources
• Fire alters production, species availability, and food quality
• Migration and immigration • Short term effects
– Arizona grassland example• Green vegetation declines while seed availability
increase• Differential small mammal response
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Understanding the Consumer Response to Food Resources
• Alternatively, shift in food sources– Ex. Australian eucalypt forest
• Bettongs exploit fire adapted fungus
– Ex. Primates in Borneo shifting food sources• Flowers and fruits unavailable→ foliar/herbaceous vegetation
and caterpillars/larvae of wood boring insects
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Plant Succession and Animal Response
• Ex. Browsers in N.A. boreal forest– Caribou eat lichen, slow growth, easily burned
• Caribou in late successional – Moose eat woody resprouts (birch, aspen)
• Moose in early successional
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Consumer Response and Food Quality
• Pulse of higher quality new growth– Increase in protein (nitrogen content) in new
growth– New tender shoots with greater digestibility– Increase in population growth rates?
• Ex. Domestic grazers
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Changes in Cover• Burned vegetation results in drastic change in both
physical and thermal cover– Ex. Cryptic insects, evolutionary response
• Physical protection from predation– Structure provides protective habitat
• Structure effects visibility
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• Clearing of structure provides visibility – Ex. Red-cockaded
woodpecker and loblolly pine understory maintenance
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Balancing Protective Cover and Food Availability
• Tallgrass prairie example• Bird response
• Increase in seed/insect availability• Decrease in cover, nesting habitat, and predator
protection
• Small mammal response • Some small rodents, i.e. prairie vole, are small
navigate litter layer and find seed• Other larger rodents, prefer burned area with
easier seed access
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Structural Diversity• Interspersion of food resources and
cover
• Positive or negative effects depending on the severity and extent and the wildlife considered
• Reduced habitat heterogeneity by large extent, severe fires
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Example: Structural Diversity• Habitat diversity
and complexity, each supports a specific faunal community– Ex. Snags
important for birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates
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Structural Diversity and Patchiness• Refugia for migration
and nucleus for recovery
• Mature cover and adjacent high quality growth
• Mosaics of food resources and cover create structural diversity– Ecotones - boundaries
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Landscape Diversity Example: Mississippi Alluvial Valley
• Landscape complexity through burning– Rice and waterfowl management– Mississippi rice fields, interspersion of open
water and emergent vegetation (Kross 2006)