Faunal responses to fire in Australian tropical savannas: Insights from field experiments and their lessons for conservation management

Andersen, Alan N.

doi:10.1111/ddi.13198

Cited by 43 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 146 publications

(174 reference statements)

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“…There is a growing body of literature exploring faunal responses to fire (Leahy et al, 2016;Legge et al, 2008) and the relationship between pyrodiversity and biodiversity (Lindenmayer et al, 2016;Stillman et al, 2019;Tingley et al, 2016). However, many of these studies are correlative and experimental studies are crucial for identifying recovery mechanisms and linking pattern to process (Andersen, 2020). A key issue relating to wildfires and prescribed fire is how different kinds of fire events influence post-fire recovery by animal populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unburnt habitat patches are critical for survival and in situ population recovery in a small mammal after fire

Shaw

James

Tuft

et al. 2021

Journal of Applied Ecology

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1. Fire drives animal population dynamics across many ecosystems. Yet, we still lack an understanding of how most species recover from fire and the effects of fire severity and patchiness on recovery processes. This information is crucial for firemediated biodiversity conservation, particularly as fire regimes change globally.2. We conducted an experiment to test whether post-fire recovery is driven by in situ survival or recolonisation, and to determine whether this varies with fires of increasing percentage area burnt (burn cover) and severity. We used the pale field rat Rattus tunneyi as a model, because it represents the extinction process for a suite of mammal species suffering population collapse across Australia's northern savannas. Our treatments spanned a gradient from patchy, low severity fires (simulating early dry season management burns) to thorough, high severity fires (simulating wildfires). We performed capture-mark-recapture, vegetation and aerial surveys before, 6 weeks after and 1 year after fire.3. Six weeks after fire, pale field rats were only captured in unburnt patches of vegetation, and capture rates were proportional to the amount of unburnt habitat.One year later, both vegetation and pale field rat populations recovered across all sites. However, population recovery after low severity fires was likely achieved through in situ survival and reproduction in unburnt micro-refuges, compared to recolonisation driving recovery after high severity fires. Synthesis and applications.Pale field rat persistence is strongly dependent on the retention of unburnt habitat patches within fire-affected areas. Management strategies that increase micro-refugia within burnt areas may facilitate pale field rat population recovery. Globally, building recovery mechanisms into fire management will be vital for supporting the long-term persistence of fire-affected species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unburnt habitat patches are critical for survival and in situ population recovery in a small mammal after fire

Shaw

James

Tuft

et al. 2021

Journal of Applied Ecology

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“…Instead it was simply the extent of fire at site-scale and broader mosaic scales that influenced mammal abundance and richness. Late dry season fires may only be detrimental to savanna mammals (as per Radford et al, 2020a) because of their large extent and lack of patchiness compared to early dry season prescribed burns, rather than because of any inherent difference in the impacts of these fires on habitat/vegetation structure (Andersen, 2020). These findings emphasize the importance of prescribed fire in NOT removing key habitat cover values, rather than in any inherent value of the early dry season burnt habitat itself.…”

Section: Explanatory Habitat Disturbance and Mosaic Features Not Supportedmentioning

confidence: 89%

Landscape-Scale Effects of Fire, Cats, and Feral Livestock on Threatened Savanna Mammals: Unburnt Habitat Matters More Than Pyrodiversity

Radford

Corey

Carnes³

et al. 2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Northern Australia has undergone significant declines among threatened small and medium-sized mammals in recent decades. Conceptual models postulate that predation by feral cats is the primary driver, with changed disturbance regimes from fire and feral livestock in recent decades reducing habitat cover and exacerbating declines. However, there is little guidance on what scale habitat and disturbance attributes are most important for threatened mammals, and what elements and scale of fire mosaics actually support mammals. In this study, we test a series of hypotheses regarding the influence of site-scale (50 × 50 m) habitat and disturbance attributes, as well as local-scale (1 km radius), meta-local scale (3 km), landscape-scale (5 km) and meta-landscape scale (10 km) fire mosaic attributes on mammal abundance and richness. We found that habitat cover (rock, perennial grass, and shrub cover) at the site-scale had a positive effect, and disturbance factors (feral cats, fire, feral livestock) had a negative influence on mammal abundance and richness. Models supported site-scale habitat and disturbance factors as more important for mammals than broader-scale (local up to meta-landscape scale) fire mosaic attributes. Finally, we found that increasing the extent of ≥ 4 year unburnt habitat, and having an intermediate percentage (ca. 25%) of recently burnt (1-year burnt) habitat within the mosaic, were the most important functional elements of the fire mosaic at broad scales for mammals. Contrary to expectations, diversity of post-fire ages (‘pyrodiversity’) was negatively associated with mammal abundance and richness. These results highlight the need for management to promote retention of longer unburnt vegetation in sufficient patches across savanna landscapes (particularly of shrub and fruiting trees), maintain low-intensity patchy fire regimes, reduce the extent of intense late dry season wildfires, and to reduce the impact of feral livestock. This study provides further evidence for the role of feral cats in northern Australian mammal declines, and highlights the need for increased research into the efficacy of cat control methodologies in reducing biodiversity impacts in these extensive landscapes.

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“…Animal and plant species typical from fire-prone ecosystems often present high resilience, and can recover quickly after fire (Andersen, 2021;Durigan et al, 2020;Pausas & Parr, 2018;Vasconcelos et al, 2009). This may help to explain why the total amount of seeds removed did not change with fire.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prescribed fire enhances seed removal by ants in a Neotropical savanna

2021

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Seed dispersal and predation by animals often drive plant regeneration. In tropical savannas, such as the Cerrado of Brazil, fire is also a key process in ecosystem dynamics, consuming the lower vegetation strata and killing wildlife, but how fire affects seedanimal interactions is virtually unknown. We investigated the effects of prescribed fires on the removal of diaspores from Miconia rubiginosa and sunflower Helianthus annuus in Cerrado from southeast Brazil. Using plots burned one month or one year before sampling and unburned controls, we assessed the effect of prescribed fire on microhabitat structure and diaspore removal by vertebrates and ants. Covered microhabitats experienced higher seed removal by vertebrates than open microhabitats, but microhabitat features did not influence seed removal by ants. Prescribed fire did not change the total amount of seed removal, and ants were responsible for most removals in burned and control plots. However, fire increased the importance of ants as agents of removal compared to vertebrates. These changes were probably mediated by changes in microhabitat cover. It is likely that species, whose seeds are often preyed upon by vertebrates, benefit from fire to escape predation, while the opposite would be true for those removed by granivorous ants. By changing microhabitats composition and frequency of seed removal by different agents, fire may create pulses of opportunities for certain plant species to increase their populations and enlarge their spatial distribution, while constraining others. However, how different fire intensities and frequencies influence seed fate of different species is still to be investigated.

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Faunal responses to fire in Australian tropical savannas: Insights from field experiments and their lessons for conservation management

Cited by 43 publications

References 146 publications

Unburnt habitat patches are critical for survival and in situ population recovery in a small mammal after fire

Unburnt habitat patches are critical for survival and in situ population recovery in a small mammal after fire

Landscape-Scale Effects of Fire, Cats, and Feral Livestock on Threatened Savanna Mammals: Unburnt Habitat Matters More Than Pyrodiversity

Prescribed fire enhances seed removal by ants in a Neotropical savanna

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