Australia's 2019–20 mega‐fires are associated with lower occupancy of a rainforest‐dependent bat

Law, Bradley; Madani, George; Lloyd, Anna; Gonsalves, Leroy; Hall, Lachlan; Sujaraj, Adrian; Brassil, Traecey; Turbill, Christopher

doi:10.1111/acv.12805

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…The findings of this study show that the effects of wildfire on vertebrate populations may not be uniform across burnt landscapes but instead vary with the severity of fire (Law, Gonsalves, Burgar, et al, 2022; Law, Madani, Gonsalves, et al, 2022; Law, Madani, Lloyd, et al, 2022). A sombre implication of this finding is that the impacts of wildfires on many vertebrate species will increase as the frequency, extent and severity of wildfires are expected to increase with climate change (Bowman et al, 2021; Canadell et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Fire severity influences the post‐fire habitat structure and abundance of a cool climate lizard

Letnic,

Roberts,

Hodgson

et al. 2023

Austral Ecology

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In the spring and summer of 2019–2020, the ‘Black Summer’ bushfires burned more than 97 000 km2 of predominantly Eucalyptus dominated forest habitat in eastern Australia. The Black Summer bushfires prompted great concern that many species had been imperilled by the fires. Here, we investigate the effects that fire severity had on the habitat and abundance of a cool climate lizard Eulamprus tympanum that was identified as a species of concern because 37% of its habitat was burnt in the Black Summer bushfires. We quantified habitat structure and the abundance of E. tympanum at sites which were unburnt, burnt at low severity and at high severity 10, 15 and 23 months after the fires. Our classification of fire severity based on scorch height and canopy status corresponded well with the Australian Government Google Earth Engine Burnt Area Map (AUS GEEBAM) fire severity layer. Ten months after the fires, sites burnt at high severity had less canopy cover, more bare ground and less fine fuel than sites burnt at low severity or unburnt sites. The abundance of E. tympanum varied with survey occasion and was greatest during the warmest sampling period and lowest during the coolest sampling period. The abundance of E. tympanum was consistently lower on sites burnt at high severity than sites burnt at low severity or unburnt sites. Our findings show that higher severity fires had a greater effect on E. tympanum than low severity fires. Our results suggest that E. tympanum were likely to have persisted in burnt sites, with populations in low severity and unburnt sites facilitating population recovery in areas burnt at high severity. Our results also suggest that wildfire impacts on E. tympanum populations will increase because the frequency and extent of severe fires are expected to increase due to climate change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Fire severity influences the post‐fire habitat structure and abundance of a cool climate lizard

Letnic,

Roberts,

Hodgson

et al. 2023

Austral Ecology

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“…Species restricted to rain forests that historically do not burn have not been exposed to this threat during their evolutionary history and are predicted to have limited adaptations for avoiding or tolerating wildfire (Mahony, Gould, et al, 2022; Mahony, Hines, et al, 2022; Nimmo et al, 2021). Susceptibility of rain forest fauna to severe wildfire has been demonstrated in other animal groups (Law, Madani, et al, 2022). In the case of amphibians, rain forest species are dependent on moist habitats and lack adaptations to reduce or avoid desiccation and are more likely to have adaptations such as tadpoles in terrestrial nests ( Philoria spp.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Susceptibility of rain forest fauna to severe wildfire has been demonstrated in other animal groups (Law, Madani, et al, 2022). In the case of amphibians, rain forest species are dependent on moist habitats and lack adaptations to reduce or avoid desiccation and are more likely to have adaptations such as tadpoles in terrestrial nests (Philoria spp.)…”

Section: Impacts Across Amphibian Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Severe wildfires promoted by climate change negatively impact forest amphibian metacommunities

Beranek

Hamer

Mahony

et al. 2023

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim: Changes to the extent and severity of wildfires driven by anthropogenic climate change are predicted to have compounding negative consequences for ecological communities. While there is evidence that severe weather events like drought impact amphibian communities, the effects of wildfire on such communities are not well understood. The impact of wildfire on amphibian communities and species is likely to vary, owing to the diversity of their life-history traits. However, no previous research has identified commonalities among the amphibians at most risk from wildfire, limiting conservation initiatives in the aftermath of severe wildfire. We aimed to investigate the impacts of the unprecedented 2019-2020 black summer bushfires on Australian forest amphibian communities.Location: Eastern coast of New South Wales, Australia. Methods:We conducted visual encounter surveys and passive acoustic monitoring across 411 sites within two regions, one in northeast and one in southeast New South Wales. We used fire severity and extent mapping in two multispecies occupancy models to assess the impacts of fire on 35 forest amphibian species. Results:We demonstrate a negative influence of severe fire extent on metacommunity occupancy and species richness in the south with weaker effects in the northreflective of the less severe fires that occurred in this region. Both threatened and common species were impacted by severe wildfire extent. Occupancy of burrowing species and rain forest specialists had mostly negative relationships with severe wildfire extent, while arboreal amphibians had neutral relationships. Main Conclusion:Metacommunity monitoring and adaptive conservation strategies are needed to account for common species after severe climatic events. Ecological, morphological and life-history variation drives the susceptibility of amphibians to wildfires. We document the first evidence of climate change-driven wildfires impacting temperate forest amphibian communities across a broad geographic area, which

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“…However, these errors are seen when distinguishing between low-and moderate-severity fires, and between high-and extreme-severity fires (White and Gibson 2022). Despite these potential uncertainties, FESM was the most logistically feasible dataset for our large-scale analysis and has been the preferred choice in numerous remote-sensing studies (Bilney et al 2022;Beranek et al 2023;Law et al 2022Law et al , 2023. More information regarding the FESM dataset can be found here https://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.…”

Section: Remote Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting the flames: site-specific effects determine species richness of Australian frogs after fire

Mitchell,

Gorta,

Callaghan

et al. 2023

Wildlife Res.

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Context Fire has played an integral role in regulating patterns of biodiversity for millions of years. However, anthropogenic disturbance and climate change has altered fire activity – driving increases in both fire severity and scale. The effect fire now has on the persistence of biodiversity is poorly known, especially for frogs. Studies examining frog responses to fire usually have small sample sizes, focus upon small geographic areas and are based on low-severity fires, which can mean results are not applicable to high-severity fires, such as those expected under future climate change. Aims Our aims were to examine (1) persistence of frog species, measured by species richness, up to 18 months post-fire, and (2) the effects of varying fire severity on frog species richness and recovery, where we expected higher fire severity to lead to lower species richness after fire. Methods Using large-scale citizen science data from the Australian Museum’s FrogID project, coupled with remotely sensed fire data, we present a spatially and taxonomically broad analysis examining post-fire recovery responses for Australian frog species after the 2019/2020 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires. Key results We reveal no overall decrease in the species richness of Australian frogs both in the short- and long-term post-fire. Furthermore, species richness did not decline with increasing fire severity. Instead, species richness and its response to fire was highly site-specific. Conclusions We provide evidence that widespread and common Australian frog species have persisted post-fire in most sites and concluded that this is potentially due to their ability to shelter from fire adequately and/or La Niña-driven high rainfall offering conditions conducive to breeding activity and persistence. Implications We show how citizen science provides critical data for conservation, especially in response to unprecedented disturbance events, such as the 2019/2020 megafires. Our research also highlights the need for ongoing and targeted scientific monitoring, especially for less common or threatened species.

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Australia's 2019–20 mega‐fires are associated with lower occupancy of a rainforest‐dependent bat

Cited by 10 publications

References 58 publications

Fire severity influences the post‐fire habitat structure and abundance of a cool climate lizard

Fire severity influences the post‐fire habitat structure and abundance of a cool climate lizard

Severe wildfires promoted by climate change negatively impact forest amphibian metacommunities

Fighting the flames: site-specific effects determine species richness of Australian frogs after fire

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