Burn severity and heterogeneity mediate avian response to wildfire in a hemiboreal forest

Zlonis, Edmund J.; Walton, Nicholas G.; Sturtevant, Brian R.; Wolter, Peter T.; Niemi, Gerald J.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2019.02.043

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Just as inconsistent results can be found among studies looking at species-specific responses to fire severity, similar variation has been seen in community responses. For example, in the deciduous dominated forests of Minnesota, alpha richness decreased dramatically with fire severity [69]. In Ponderosa pine, alpha richness increased in an Idaho study, but decreased in an Arizona study, even when identical sampling and methodological techniques were used [38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian Response to Wildfire Severity in a Northern Boreal Region

Knaggs

Haché

Nielsen

et al. 2020

Forests

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Research Highlights: The effects of fire on birds in the most northern parts of the boreal forest are understudied. We found distinct differences in bird communities with increasing fire severity in two vegetation types with naturally different burn severity. The highest severity burns tended to have communities dominated by generalist species, regardless of the original vegetation type. Background and Objectives: Wildfire is the primary natural disturbance in the boreal ecosystems of northwestern Canada. Increased wildfire frequency, extent, and severity are expected with climate change in this region. In particular, the proportion of burns that are high severity and the area of peatlands burned are increasing, and how this influences birds is poorly understood. Materials and Methods: We quantified the effects of burn severity (low, moderate, and high severity) in uplands and peatlands on occupancy, density, richness, community composition, and functional diversity using point counts (n = 1158) from the first two years post-fire for two large fires in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Results: Burn severity had a significant effect on the occupancy and density of 86% of our focal species (n = 20). Responses to burn severity depended on vegetation type for four of the 18 species using occupancy and seven of the 18 using density, but were typically in a similar direction. Species richness and functional diversity were lower in areas of high severity burns than unburned areas and low severity burns in peatlands. Richness was not related to severity in uplands, but functional diversity was. Peatlands had higher species richness than uplands in all burn severities, but as burn severity increased the upland and peatland communities became more similar. Conclusions: Our results suggest that high severity burns in both vegetation types support five generalist species and two fire specialists that may benefit from alterations in vegetation structure as a result of climate induced changes to fire regimes. However, eight species avoided burns, particularly birds preferring peatlands, and are likely to be more susceptible to fire-driven changes to their habitat caused by climate change. Understanding the long-term risks to these species from climate change requires additional efforts that link fire to bird populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian Response to Wildfire Severity in a Northern Boreal Region

Knaggs

Haché

Nielsen

et al. 2020

Forests

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“…Additionally, QPAD offsets produced by BAM have been used extensively to adjust survey point count data to account for detectability (Hobson & Kardynal 2019, Zlonis et al . 2019, Knaggs et al . 2020, Leston et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is therefore a need for a systematic approach to estimating these detection distances for all landbirds, while accounting for variation in environmental conditions and survey types (Stanton et al 2019) (Barker et al 2015) and the QPAD methodology (S ólymos et al 2013) to allow multiple survey types and survey conditions to be accounted for. Additionally, QPAD offsets produced by BAM have been used extensively to adjust survey point count data to account for detectability (Hobson & Kardynal 2019, Zlonis et al 2019, Knaggs et al 2020, Leston et al 2020 and to estimate population sizes and distribution of boreal birds (Crosby et al 2019, Sólymos et al 2020b. Thus, the next frontier is to extend these methods developed by BAM and use the millions of rigorously collected bird observations and covariates (i.e.…”

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confidence: 99%

Point count offsets for estimating population sizes of north American landbirds

Edwards

Smith

Docherty

et al. 2023

Ibis

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Bird monitoring in North America over several decades has generated many open databases, housing millions of structured and semi‐structured bird observations. These provide the opportunity to estimate bird densities and population sizes, once variation in factors such as underlying field methods, timing, land cover, proximity to roads, and uneven spatial coverage are accounted for. To facilitate integration across databases, we introduce NA‐POPS: Point Count Offsets for Population Sizes of North American Landbirds. NA‐POPS is a large‐scale, multi‐agency project providing an open‐source database of detectability functions for all North American landbirds. These detectability functions allow the integration of data from across disparate survey methods using the QPAD approach, which considers the probability of detection (q) and availability (p) of birds in relation to area (a) and density (d). To date, NA‐POPS has compiled over 7.1 million data points spanning 292 projects from across North America, and produced detectability functions for 338 landbird species. Here, we describe the methods used to curate these data and generate these detectability functions, as well as the open‐access nature of the resulting database.

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“…Fire management for biodiversity conservation is a common practice in several temperate and tropical regions (e.g., Miranda et al 2009, Bardsley et al 2019, Phalan et al 2019. Birds' responses can vary with characteristics of prescribed fires, such as severity, frequency, heterogeneity and season (Greenberg et al 2019, Zlonis et al 2019. Fire management may affect birds' abundance and breeding due to changes in the vegetation and associated resources (e.g., O'Loughlin et al 2019, Ragheb et al 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire management and aspects of the nesting biology of the Red-legged Seriema (Cariama cristata) in woodlands at Parque Nacional das Emas, central Cerrado

Tubelis

2019

Rev. Bras. Ornitol.

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In the Brazilian Cerrado Biome, fire management within conservation units is usually restricted to burning grassland and woodland strips during the dry season to stop fires from spreading. Although it is a common practice, the impact of fire management on birds remains poorly investigated. This study aimed to examine the effects of fire management on nest-site selection by the Red-legged Seriema, Cariama cristata, and to describe nest-building characteristics at Parque Nacional das Emas (PNE). Nests were searched and monitored throughout 34 study sites between October and November 2006. These sites were 2.5-km strips of Campo Cerrado woodlands with (firebreaks) and without fire management, located at the interior and boundaries of the park. A total of 13 nests were found, all within firebreaks at the edge of the park. Nine (69%) of them were in fruiting Pouteria torta (Mart.) (Sapotaceae). Two or three white eggs were found in the nests. Nests had eggs and nestlings in October and no nestlings were found in November. Nests were usually in tree canopies and some of them were built nearly over the park’s fence. At PNE, breeding pairs of C. cristata are attracted to firebreaks located at the park’s boundaries. This is probably due to mobility through often burnt vegetation and ease in obtaining food from adjacent unsealed roads, exotic plantations and cleared areas. This study suggests that fire managers should: 1) avoid extinguishing natural fires initiated during the rainy season and 2) rotate controlled burning of patchy areas of Campo Cerrado woodlands. These two procedures should ensure the presence of suitable woodlands with short grasses in interior portions of PNE.

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Burn severity and heterogeneity mediate avian response to wildfire in a hemiboreal forest

Cited by 8 publications

References 38 publications

Avian Response to Wildfire Severity in a Northern Boreal Region

Avian Response to Wildfire Severity in a Northern Boreal Region

Point count offsets for estimating population sizes of north American landbirds

Fire management and aspects of the nesting biology of the Red-legged Seriema (Cariama cristata) in woodlands at Parque Nacional das Emas, central Cerrado

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