Dynamics of Breeding-Season Site Occupancy of the California Spotted Owl in Burned Forests

Lee, Derek; Bond, Monica L.; Siegel, Rodney B.

doi:10.1525/cond.2012.110147

Cited by 48 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…CESF habitat represented by Black-backed Woodpeckers is biologically unique (Hutto 1995;Bond et al 2012). The Black-backed Woodpecker is an important primary excavator of nesting holes for many other cavity-nesting birds and mammals because it discards cavities after excavating them, and it uses a given cavity for one year (Tarbill 2010).…”

Section: Indicator Species For Cesf Biodiversity (Figure 3)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Survival Rates of Northern Spotted Owls in Post-fire Landscapes of Southwest Oregon

Clark

Anthony

Andrews

2011

Journal of Raptor Research

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Section: Indicator Species For Cesf Biodiversity (Figure 3)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Survival Rates of Northern Spotted Owls in Post-fire Landscapes of Southwest Oregon

Clark

Anthony

Andrews

2011

Journal of Raptor Research

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“…Roberts et al (2011) found no support for an occupancy model for California Spotted Owls that distinguished between burned and unburned sites in unmanaged forests; the mean "owl survey area" that burned at high-severity was 12%, with one survey area experiencing up to 52% high-severity fire, which is almost three times the current amount of severe fire in owl habitat, according to the MTBS data. In a longer-term (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007) study of California Spotted Owl site-occupancy dynamics throughout the Sierra Nevada, high-severity fire that burned on average 32% of forested vegetation around nests and core roosts had no significant effect on extinction or colonization probabilities, and overall occupancy probabilities were slightly higher in mixed-severity burned areas than in unburned forest (Lee et al 2012), while other research found no significant difference in home range size between mixedseverity fire areas and unburned forest (Bond et al 2013). Studies on reproduction in occupied sites of all three spotted owl subspecies indicated no difference between unburned sites and mixed-severity burned sites (excluding burn out areas created by fire suppression operations) (Jenness et al 2004), or in some cases reproduction may have been greater in burned sites (Bond et al 2002, Roberts 2008.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Effects of Fire and Commercial Thinning on Future Habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl

Odion¹,

Hanson²,

DellaSala³

et al. 2014

TOORTHJ

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Abstract:The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is an emblematic, threatened raptor associated with dense, late-successional forests in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Concerns over high-severity fire and reduced timber harvesting have led to programs to commercially thin forests, and this may occur within habitat designated as "critical" for spotted owls. However, thinning is only allowed under the U.S. Government spotted owl guidelines if the long-term benefits clearly outweigh adverse impacts. This possibility remains uncertain. Adverse impacts from commercial thinning may be caused by removal of key habitat elements and creation of forests that are more open than those likely to be occupied by spotted owls. Benefits of thinning may accrue through reduction in high-severity fire, yet whether the firereduction benefits accrue faster than the adverse impacts of reduced late-successional habitat from thinning remains an untested hypothesis. We found that rotations of severe fire (the time required for high-severity fire to burn an area equal to the area of interest once) in spotted owl habitat since 1996, the earliest date we could use, were 362 and 913 years for the two regions of interest: the Klamath and dry Cascades. Using empirical data, we calculated the future amount of spotted owl habitat that may be maintained with these rates of high-severity fire and ongoing forest regrowth rates with and without commercial thinning. Over 40 years, habitat loss would be far greater than with no thinning because, under a "best case" scenario, thinning reduced 3.4 and 6.0 times more dense, late-successional forest than it prevented from burning in high-severity fire in the Klamath and dry Cascades, respectively. Even if rates of fire increase substantially, the requirement that the long-term benefits of commercial thinning clearly outweigh adverse impacts is not attainable with commercial thinning in spotted owl habitat. It is also becoming increasingly recognized that exclusion of high-severity fire may not benefit spotted owls in areas where owls evolved with reoccurring fires in the landscape.

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“…The authors' finding, that spotted owl sites with predominantly high-severity fire effects had 77% occupancy when <5% of the area within a 1500 m radius of territory centres was subjected to post-fire logging, is notable in the sense that it compares favourably with current California spotted owl occupancy levels in unburned, mature forest (Lee et al 2012). More post-fire research is needed pertaining to spotted owls, including investigations of time-since-fire.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dates of fires, pre-logging and post-logging surveys and logging are shown in Table 1. The authors considered a site to be occupied in a given year when at least one owl was detected (Lee et al 2012, Lee and Bond 2015a, b, Jones et al 2016). Detection indicated an owl utilised the site for any component of its life history, including foraging, roosting, nesting or territorial defence (Jones et al 2016).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the concern indicated in Jones et al (2016) regarding lost occupancy in sites with substantial high-severity fire effects, the authors analysed naïve occupancy (detections versus no detections as recorded by surveyors, without extrapolating to adjust for probability of detection) of California spotted owl sites with 20-49% and 50-80% high-severity fire (as defined below). Occupancy of such sites was analysed within a 1500 m radius around site centres (nest or core roost locations at the centre of the site; Lee et al 2012) at two different levels of post-fire logging, <5% and ≥5%, pertaining to the percentage of the total area within the 1500 m radius around the site's centre that was post-fire logged.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of post-fire logging on California spotted owl occupancy

Hanson¹,

Bond²,

Lee³

2018

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In fire-adapted forest ecosystems around the world, there has been growing concern about adverse impacts of post-fire logging on native biodiversity and ecological processes. This is also true in conifer forests of California, U.S.A. which are home to a rare and declining owl subspecies, the California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis). While there has been recent concern about the California spotted owl occupancy in large fire areas where some territories have substantial high-severity fire effects, the influence of post-fire logging on the California spotted owl occupancy has been investigated very little, leading to some uncertainty about interpretation of conflicting results in different large fires. Research has found these owls preferentially select high-severity fire areas, characterised by high levels of snags and native shrubs, for foraging in forests that were not logged after fire, suggesting that removal of this foraging habitat might impact occupancy. The authors assessed the effect of post-fire logging and high-severity fire, on occupancy of this subspecies in eight large fire areas, within spotted owl sites with two different levels of high-severity fire effects. They found a significant adverse effect of such logging and no effect of high-severity fire alone. These results indicate it is post-fire logging, not large fires themselves, that poses a conservation threat to this imperilled species. RESEARCH ARTICLE Launched to accelerate biodiversity conservation A peer-reviewed open-access journalChad T. Hanson et al. / Nature Conservation 24: 93-105 (2018) 94

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Dynamics of Breeding-Season Site Occupancy of the California Spotted Owl in Burned Forests

Cited by 48 publications

References 24 publications

Survival Rates of Northern Spotted Owls in Post-fire Landscapes of Southwest Oregon

Survival Rates of Northern Spotted Owls in Post-fire Landscapes of Southwest Oregon

Effects of Fire and Commercial Thinning on Future Habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl

Effects of post-fire logging on California spotted owl occupancy

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