Response of ants and spiders to prescribed fire in oak woodlands of California

Abstract

Conservation managers of oak woodlands have been reintroducing fire both as an ecological process per se and to assist in restoring native plant communities. To increase our understanding of the impacts of reintroduced fire on ground-dwelling invertebrates we examined the response of ants and spiders to a late season (autumn) prescribed fire conducted in a blue oak (Quercus douglasii) woodland ecosystem in northern California. Twelve 100 m 9 100 m plots were established, six plots received a burn treatment and the remaining six plots were unburned controls. Ants and spiders were sampled using pitfall traps left open continuously and collected approximately every 32 days. Sampling was conducted over a year, consisting of four pre-burn and nine post-burn collections. Abundance was analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA, which showed seed-harvester ants decreased significantly in the two months following the fire. Total spider abundance also showed a significant decrease in two months, although this did not occur immediately after the burn. One spider hunting guild, the 'diurnal ambush' group (Thomisidae) remained suppressed for up to nine months. Correspondence analysis measures of ant species abundance with environmental and vegetation variables (percent rock, bare ground, plant species richness and height of herbaceous vegetation) were higher than expected by chance, which assists in explaining some of the responses. Findings from this study revealed that the reintroduction of autumn burns has modest and short-term effect on the invertebrates sampled, suggesting that late season fires are compatible with other conservation goals for oak woodland ecosystems.

Annual fire resilience of ground‐dwelling ant communities in Hiraodai Karst Plateau grassland in Japan

“…). A similar delay in response to fire was observed in spiders by Underwood and Quinn (), but no such delay was observed in their ant observations.…”

“…The biodiversity of fire-managed environments is generally regarded as being relatively low (e.g. Underwood & Quinn 2010). However, among seminatural environments, grasslands are often biodiversity hotspots as many rare or endemic species are restricted to these habitats (van Swaay 2002;Batáry et al 2007;Knop et al 2010).…”

Understanding the impact of fire on termites in degraded tropical peatlands and the mechanisms for their ecological success: current knowledge and research needs

“…Fire appears to cause a dramatic reduction in ant assemblages (e.g., Parr et al 2002;Teixeira et al 2005;Underwood and Quinn 2010). The composition of ant species and functional groups can also change (e.g., Beaumont et al 2012;Arnan et al 2013;Silveira et al 2013).…”

Monitoring the short-term effects of prescribed fire on an endemic mollusk in the dry forests of the eastern Cascades, Washington, USA

“…The MANOVA determines the overall differences in snail densities (dependent variable) as a result of time or the treatment effect (independent variables), while the PROFILE analysis determines where the differences take place in the repeated measurements (Von Ende, 2001;Underwood and Quinn, 2010). We used this analysis approach because we measured the densities of the mountainsnails within the same sample block repeatedly so values were not independent (Zar, 1996).…”