Extent, configuration and diversity of burned and forested areas predict bat richness in a fire-maintained forest

Abstract

Context Fire transforms, fragments and sometimes maintains forests, creating mosaics of burned and unburned patches. Highly mobile animals respond to resources in the landscape at a variety of spatial scales, yet we know little about their landscape-scale relationships with fire. Objectives We aimed to identify drivers of bat richness in a landscape mosaic of forested and burned areas while identifying spatial scales at which bat richness was most strongly related to extent, configuration, and diversity measures of landscape-level habitat. Methods We used multi-species hierarchical occupancy modelling to relate bat richness to landscape variables at 10 spatial scales, based on acoustic data collected in the Sierra Nevada, United States. We also assessed redundancy among landscape variable type (extent, configuration, and diversity) and between focal patch types (forested and burned). Results Bat richness was positively associated with heterogenous landscapes, shown by positive associations with pyrodiversity, extent and mean area of burned patches, burned and forested edge density and patch density and relationships were generally consistent across scales. Extent of forest cover and burned areas were highly correlated, but configuration and diversity of these patch types diverged. Conclusions Bat communities of our study area appear to be largely resilient to wildfire and adapted to more heterogenous forests and shorter-interval fire regimes that likely predominated before the fire suppression era.

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

“…Neither the extent of high severity nor low severity fire by themselves were supported by occupancy modelling, suggesting the total area of the combined fire impacts was most important for this species. Unlike recent findings for the northern spotted owl and bat richness in North America (Steel et al, 2019;Blakey et al, 2021;Jones et al, 2021), pyrodiversity was not related to P. papuensis occupancy, perhaps because the specialised requirements of P. papuensis are not accounted for in fire patchiness or the scale was too coarse. In addition to fire, two other habitat features were related to P. papuensis occupancy.…”

“…Studies of localised fires at rainforest‐grassland edges have found an increase in total bat activity in response to fire, but no response of closed space species that specialize on foraging in vegetation (Broken‐Brow et al., 2020). Studies of other bat species outside of rainforest reveal a degree of resilience to the effects of wildfires that in part relate to the flush of insect prey in regenerating vegetation and reduced clutter levels in forests, while the mobility of bats can also facilitate rapid landscape recolonisation (Malison & Baxter, 2010; Buchalski et al., 2013; Law, Chidel, & Law, 2018; Ancillotto et al., 2021; Blakey et al., 2021). Pyrodiversity (variation in burn severity) is also correlated positively with bat richness (Steel et al., 2019; Blakey et al., 2021).…”

The impact of fire severity from the 2019 to 2020 mega‐fires on roosting ecology of a rainforest‐dependent bat (Phoniscus papuensis)

“…Yet there is also some evidence that recurring wildfires have impacted some species . Responses to fire vary depending on the species, their traits and fire severity with a reduction in clutter levels and post-fire pulses of insects often being related to higher activity (Recher et al 1985;Malison & Baxter 2010;Blakey et al 2021). However, relatively little is known about how fire affects roost selection by bats.…”

“…1985; Malison & Baxter 2010; Blakey et al . 2021). However, relatively little is known about how fire affects roost selection by bats.…”

Severe wildfires promoted by climate change negatively impact forest amphibian metacommunities

“…Our findings demonstrate that large‐scale severe wildfires can negatively affect the persistence of numerous species and amphibian communities. The extent and severity of wildfire has been shown to be an important predictor of persistence in other fauna communities and species (Blakey et al, 2021; Law, Gonsalves, et al, 2022; Lindenmayer et al, 2013). Numerous studies have reported amphibian persistence after wildfire, but these have been restricted to either relatively low‐severity or small‐scale fires (<10,000 ha, e.g.…”