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1,989 results for “Fires”
Data from: Creosote growth rate and reproduction increase in post-fire environments
<p>Human activities are changing patterns of ecological disturbance globally. In North American deserts, wildfire is increasing in size and frequency due to fuel characteristics of invasive annual grasses. Fire reduces the abundance and cover of native vegetation in desert ecosystems. In this study, we sought to characterize stem growth and reproductive output of a dominant native shrub in the Mojave Desert, creosote bush (Larrea tridentata (DC.) Coville) following wildfires that occurred in 2005. We sampled 55 shrubs along burned and unburned transects 12 years after the fires (2017) and quantified age, stem diameter, stem number, radial and vertical growth rates, and fruit production for each shrub. The shrubs on the burn transects were most likely post-fire resprouts based on stem age while stems from unburn transects dated from before the fire. Stem and vertical growth rates for shrubs on burned transects were 2.6 and 1.7 times higher than that observed for stems on unburned shrubs. Fruit production of shrubs along burned transects was 4.7-fold more than shrubs along paired unburned transects. Growth rates and fruit production of shrubs in burned areas did not differ with increasing distance from the burn perimeter. Positive growth and reproduction responses of creosote following wildfires could be critical for soil stabilization and re-establishment of native plant communities in this desert system. Additional research is needed to assess if repeat fires that are characteristic of invasive grass-fire cycles may limit these benefits.</p>
Data set: Burn severity and soil chemistry are weak drivers of early vegetation succession following a boreal mega-fire in a production forest landscape
<p>Data used in the analyses of the study. Data set on soil chemistry (pH, organic content, nutrient content), plots distance to the fire perimeter, and plant communities (vascular plants and bryophytes) recorded in permanent plots on clearcuts in a burn-severity gradient two and five years following a wildfire. Data collected from a 13000 hectare wildfire that occurred in 2014, in boreal southern Sweden. Calculated trait means from data bases, and plant community data from unburned plots from another study, are are also included here.</p>
Biodiversity and Forest structure one year following the 2016 Fort McMurray (Alberta) fire event
<p>Exploration practices for oil sands developments in the boreal forest of western Canada create a network of thousands of kilometers of linear features, particularly seismic lines that dissect these forests posing significant environmental challenges. As wildfire is one of the prevalent stand-replacing natural disturbances in the Canadian boreal forest, it is an important driver of environmental change and stand development that may contribute to the mitigation of such linear industrial footprint. Here, we evaluate the short-term cumulative (also known as combined) effects of seismic lines and wildfire on biodiversity and site conditions. One year after the Horse River (Fort McMurray, Alberta) fire event in the spring of 2016, we compared dissected and undisturbed forests in burned and unburned boreal peatlands, assessing changes in overall stand structure and the responses of a variety of organisms. Soil moisture was significantly higher on seismic lines than in the adjacent forest, suggesting why most of the study sites within the fire perimeter showed little evidence of burning at the line in relation to the adjacent forest. Low fire severity on seismic lines seemed an important driver of local species diversity for ants, beetles, spiders, and plants in disturbed peatlands, resulting in similar species composition on seismic lines both within and outside the burned area, but different assemblages in burned and unburned adjacent forests. Our results suggest that fire did not erase seismic lines; rather, wildfire might increase the influence of this footprint on the recovering adjacent forest. Longer term monitoring will be necessary to understand how boreal treed peatlands respond to the cumulative effect of wildfire and linear disturbances.</p>
Resprouting grasses are associated with less frequent fire than seeders
<ul> <li> <span><span>Plant populations persist under recurrent fire via resprouting from surviving tissues (resprouters) or seedling recruitment (</span></span>seeders). Woody species are inherently slow-maturing, meaning that seeders are confined to infrequent fire regimes. However, for grasses, which mature faster, the relationships between persistence strategy and fire regime remains unknown.</li> <li>Globally, we analysed associations between fire regimes experienced by hundreds of grass species and their persistence strategy, within a phylogenetic context. We also tested whether persistence strategies are associated with morphological and physiological traits.</li> <li>Resprouters were associated with less frequent fire than seeders. Whilst modal fire frequencies were similar (fire return interval of 4-6 years), seeders were restricted to regions with more frequent fire than resprouters, suggesting that greater competition with long-lived resprouters restricts seeder recruitment and survival when fire is rare. Resprouting was associated with lower leaf N, higher C/N ratios and the presence of below-ground buds, but was unrelated to photosynthetic pathway.</li> <li>Differences between the life histories of grasses and woody species lead to a contrasting prevalence of seeders and resprouters in relation to fire frequency. Rapid sexual maturation in grasses means that seeder distributions, relative to fire regime, are determined by competitive ability and recruitment, rather than time to reproductive maturity.</li> </ul>
Data from: Strong dispersal limitation in post-fire regeneration of Baker cypress, a rare serotinous conifer
<p>PREMISE: Dispersal capacity primarily determines the spatial establishment patterns that drive range expansions and contractions in tree species. For Baker cypress (Hesperocyparis bakeri [(Jeps.) Bartel]), seedling establishment relies predominantly on fire events due to its cone serotiny, shade intolerance, and small seeds requiring the optimal conditions of fire-exposed, mineral soil seedbeds. <br> <br> METHODS: This study quantified the density and spatial distribution of post-disturbance seedlings following the 2014 Eiler fire in northern California and compared the observed recruitment to predictions from a mechanistic seed dispersal model. <br> <br> RESULTS: Post-fire recruitment was dense, averaging 11 seedling/m 2 , and occurred primarily in the first year after fire. We estimated the mean descent velocity of the wingless seeds as around 4 m/sec, the highest value reported for any putatively wind-dispersed tree species. The rapid seed decent contributed to markedly constrained recruitment in space. Most seedlings (~81%) established within 5 m of the parent tree, and 94% established within 10 m. The maximum observed dispersal distance was 48.5 m, and scaled linearly with canopy height. Distributions of modeled seed dispersal distance and observed seedling establishment in Baker cypress did not differ, demonstrating that wind disperses seeds a short distance due to the lack of a wing, and secondary dispersal appeared to be minimal at this recently burned site. <br> <br> CONCLUSIONS: If seed dispersal is solely reliant on wind, migration in response to rapid climate change will be impeded and potentially present difficulties in sustaining populations of this and other obligate seeder species with equally constrained dispersal.</p>
Data from: Physical and ecological isolation contribute to maintain genetic differentiation between fire salamander subspecies
<p>Landscape features shape patterns of gene flow among populations, ultimately determining where taxa lay along the continuum between panmixia to complete reproductive isolation. Gene flow can be restricted leading to population differentiation in two non-exclusive ways: "physical isolation", in which geographic distance in combination with the landscape features restricts movement of individuals promoting genetic drift, and "ecological isolation", in which adaptive mechanisms constrain gene flow between different environments via divergent natural selection. In central Iberia, two fire salamander subspecies occur in parapatry across elevation gradients along the Iberian Central System mountains, while in adjacent Mountains of Toledo Region only one of them occurs. By integrating population and landscape genetic analyses, we show a ubiquitous role of physical isolation between and within mountain ranges, with unsuitable landscapes increasing differentiation between populations. However, across the Iberian Central System, we found strong support for a significant contribution of ecological isolation, with low genetic differentiation in environmentally homogeneous areas, but high differentiation across sharp transitions in precipitation seasonality. These patterns are consistent with a significant contribution of ecological isolation in restricting gene flow among subspecies. Overall, our results suggest that ecological divergence contributes to reduce genetic admixture, creating an opportunity for lineages to follow distinct evolutionary trajectories.</p>
Data from: Interspecific variation in post-disturbance growth responses of a savanna tree community and its implications for escaping the fire trap
<p>Vegetation states in savannas are highly sensitive to tree growth rates, which determine whether individual trees can 'escape' periodic disturbances. Resprouting trees have lopsided shoot:root ratios and are often multi-stemmed, and these variables can modify post-disturbance growth rates and therefore the probability of escape. To date, few studies have systematically examined the implications of interspecific variation in these factors for escape. We conducted a two-year field experiment in lowveld savanna in South Africa and quantified post-disturbance growth characteristics of topkilled trees among 16 species. We examined the dependence of growth on pre-disturbance stem size across species, and the relationship between growth rates and the tendency of trees to produce a few large <i>vs.</i> many small resprouts following disturbance. We found that resprout growth was strongly influenced by pre-disturbance size, but the relationship did not vary among species. In contrast, our results showed that fast-growing species tend to allocate resources towards a few dominant stems, while slow-growing species allocated new biomass towards many smaller stems. Tree species that produced a few large stems also tended to produce individual stems that were tall and thin, further suggesting that the "few large <i>vs.</i> many small" axis is linked to intrinsic species attributes. These findings have implications for understanding how interspecific variation in savanna tree communities may influence their ability to escape disturbance traps.</p>
Data from: Influence of canopy openness, ungulate exclosure, and low-intensity fire for improved oak regeneration in temperate Europe
<p>Failed oak regeneration is widely reported in temperate forests and has been linked in part to changed disturbance regimes and land-use. We investigated if the North American fire-oak hypothesis could be applicable to temperate European oaks (<i>Q. robur</i>, <i>Q. petraea</i>) using a replicated field experiment with contrasting canopy openness, protection against ungulate browsing (fencing/no fencing), and low-intensity surface fire (burn/no burn). Survival, relative height growth (RGR<sub>H</sub>), browsing damage on naturally regenerated oaks (≤300 cm tall), and changes in competing woody vegetation were monitored over three years. Greater light availability in canopy gaps increased oak RGR<sub>H</sub> (<i>P</i>=0.034) and tended to increase survival (<i>P</i>=0.092). There was also a trend that protection from browsing positively affected RGR<sub>H</sub> (<i>P</i>=0.058) and survival (<i>P</i>=0.059). Burning reduced survival (<i>P</i><0.001), nonetheless survival rates were relatively high across treatment combinations at the end of the experiment (54-92%). Most oaks receiving fire were top-killed and survived by producing new sprouts; therefore, RGR<sub>H</sub> in burned plots became strongly negative the first year. Thereafter, RGR<sub>H</sub> was greater in burned plots (<i>P</i>=0.002). Burning altered patterns of ungulate browsing frequency on oaks. Overall, browsing frequency was greater during winter; however, in recently burned plots summer browsing was prominent. Burning did not change relative density of oaks, but it had a clear effect on competing woody vegetation as it reduced the number of individuals (<i>P</i><0.001) and their heights (<i>P</i><0.001). Our results suggests that young, temperate European oaks may respond similarly to fire as their North American congeners. However, disturbance from a single low-intensity fire may not be sufficient to ensure a persistent competitive advantage—multiple fires and canopy thinning to increase light availability may be needed. Further research investigating long-term fire effects on oaks of various ages, species-specific response of competitors, and implications for biodiversity conservation are needed.</p>
Data from: Fire and mechanical forest management treatments support different portions of the bird community in fire-suppressed forests
<p>Silvicultural treatments, fire, and insect outbreaks are the primary disturbance events currently affecting forests in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, a region where plants and wildlife are highly adapted to a frequent-fire disturbance regime that has been suppressed for decades. Although the effects of both fire and silviculture on wildlife have been studied by many, there are few studies that directly compare their long-term effects on wildlife communities. We conducted avian point counts from 2010 to 2019 at 1987 in situ field survey locations across eight national forests and collected fire and silvicultural treatment data from 1987 to 2016, resulting in a 20-year post-disturbance chronosequence. We evaluated two categories of fire severity in comparison to silvicultural management (largely pre-commercial and commercial thinning treatments) as well as undisturbed locations to model their influences on abundances of 71 breeding bird species. More species (48% of the community) reached peak abundance at moderate-high-severity-fire locations than at low-severity fire (8%), silvicultural management (16%), or undisturbed (13%) locations. Total community abundance was highest in undisturbed dense forests as well as in the first few years after silvicultural management and lowest in the first few years after moderate-high-severity fire, then abundance in all types of disturbed habitats was similar by 10 years after disturbance. Even though the total community abundance was relatively low in moderate-high-severity-fire habitats, species diversity was the highest. Moderate-high-severity fire supported a unique portion of the avian community, while low-severity fire and silvicultural management were relatively similar. We conclude that a significant portion of the bird community in the Sierra Nevada region is dependent on moderate-high-severity fire and thus recommend that a prescribed and managed wildfire program that incorporates a variety of fire effects will best maintain biodiversity in this region.</p> <p><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/150/htm" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/150/htm</a></p>
Data for ED2 fire scenarios
<p>The folder consists of inputs data necessary to run ED2 model for fire scenarios</p>
Data from: Chaparral bird community responses to prescribed fire and shrub removal in three management seasons
Chaparral, a type of shrubland common throughout the California Floristic Province, is subject to management and removal in regions where wildfire threatens human lives and property. Management practices include conducting prescribed burns outside of the historical fire season and employing mechanical fuel reduction (mastication). As the wildland–urban interface grows, particularly in coastal California, more of this ecosystem is subject to active management. To understand the ecological implications of current California chaparral fire management practices, we studied bird species composition, abundance and foraging guilds in managed and unmanaged chaparral over 5 years. Study areas were located in Mendocino County in the coast ranges of northern California. We contrast six chaparral removal or "fuels manipulation" treatments: (1) fall fire, (2) winter fire, (3) spring fire, (4) fall mastication, (5) spring mastication and (6) untreated control. Treatments and controls were implemented in plots 2 ha or larger, and replicated four times each. We find that species richness in prescribed fire treatments reaches comparable levels to controls in the first 3 years following treatment, whereas masticated units always have lower species richness. Generalized linear mixed models additionally confirm that mastication has highly negative effects on observed abundances of birds compared to controls and to prescribed fire. The season in which fuels reduction occurred was less important to species richness, although fall fire was more beneficial to bird abundance than spring or winter fire. Fire treatments in all seasons maintain the same general bird community structure as controls, while mastication results in strongly differentiated assemblages, increasing granivores while nearly excluding foliage gleaners. Synthesis and applications. We compare two California chaparral management techniques, prescribed fire and mastication, in three seasons (fall, winter and spring) in northern California, USA. We tracked chaparral bird community response in 23 experimental units for 2–5 years. We conclude that prescribed fire and mastication are not interchangeable management techniques, and that mastication negatively impacts bird communities, altering guild structure and reducing both diversity and abundance.
Data from: Mauritius on fire: tracking historical human impacts on biodiversity loss
Fire was rare on Mauritius prior to human arrival (AD 1598); subsequently three phases of elevated fire activity occurred: c. 1630-1747, 1787-1833, and 1950-modern. Elevated fire frequency coincided with periods of high human impact evidenced from the historical record, and is linked to the extinction of island endemics.
Data from: Fire influences the structure of plant-bee networks
1. Fire represents a frequent disturbance in many ecosystems, which can affect plant-pollinator assemblages and hence the services they provide. Furthermore, fire events could affect the architecture of plant-pollinator interaction networks, modifying the structure and function of communities. 2. Some pollinators, such as wood-nesting bees, may be particularly affected by fire events due to damage to nesting material and its long regeneration time. However, it remains unclear whether fire influences the structure of bee plant interactions. 3. Here, we used quantitative plant-wood nesting bee interaction networks sampled across four different post-fire age categories (from freshly-burnt to unburnt sites) in an arid ecosystem to test whether the abundance of wood-nesting bees, the breadth of resource use and the plant-bee community structure change along a post-fire age gradient. 4. We demonstrate that freshly-burnt sites present higher abundances of generalist than specialist wood-nesting bees and this translates into lower network modularity than that of sites with greater post-fire ages. Bees do not seem to change their feeding behaviour across the post-fire age gradient despite changes in floral resource availability. 5. Despite the effects of fire on plant-bee interaction network structure, these mutualistic networks seem to be able to recover a few years after the fire event. This result suggests that these interactions might be highly resilient to this type of disturbance.
Data from: Post-fire changes in forest carbon storage over a 300-year chronosequence of Pinus contorta-dominated forests
A warming climate may increase the frequency and severity of stand-replacing wildfires, reducing carbon (C) storage in forest ecosystems. Understanding the variability of post-fire C cycling on heterogeneous landscapes is critical for predicting changes in C storage with more frequent disturbance. We measured C pools and fluxes for 77 lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud var. latifolia Engelm.) stands in and around Yellowstone National Park (YNP) along a 300-year chronosequence to examine how quickly forest C pools recover after a stand-replacing fire, their variability through time across a complex landscape, and the role of stand structure in this variability. Carbon accumulation after fire was rapid relative to the historical mean fire interval of 150-300 years, recovering nearly 80% of pre-fire C in 50 years and 90% within 100 years. Net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) declined monotonically from 160 g C m-2 yr-1 at age 12 to 5 g C m 2 yr-1 at age 250, but was never negative after disturbance. Decomposition and accumulation of dead wood contributed little to NECB relative to live biomass in this system. Aboveground net primary productivity was correlated with leaf area for all stands, and the decline in aboveground net primary productivity with forest age was related to a decline in both leaf area and growth efficiency. Forest structure was an important driver of ecosystem C, with ecosystem C, live biomass C, and organic soil C varying with basal area or tree density in addition to forest age. Rather than identifying a single chronosequence, we found high variability in many components of ecosystem C stocks through time; a > 50% random subsample of the sampled stands was necessary to reliably estimate the non-linear equation coefficients for ecosystem C. At the spatial scale of YNP, this variability suggests that landscape C develops via many pathways over decades and centuries, with prior stand structure, regeneration, and within-stand disturbance all important. With fire rotation projected to be < 30 years by mid century in response to a changing climate, forests in YNP will store substantially less C (at least 4.8 kg C/m2 or 30% less).
Data from: Exploiting Poisson additivity to predict fire frequency from maps of fire weather and land cover in boreal forests of Québec, Canada
Predictive models of fire frequency conditional on weather and land cover are essential to assess how future cover-type distributions and weather conditions may influence fire regimes. We modelled the effects of bottom-up variables (e.g. land cover) and top-down variables (e.g. fire weather) simultaneously with data aggregated or interpolated to spatial and temporal units of 100 km2 and 1yr in the boreal forest of Québec, Canada. For models of human-caused fires, we used road density as a surrogate for human access and behaviour. We exploited the additive property of Poisson distributions to estimate cover-type specific fire count rates, which would normally not be possible with data of this spatial resolution. We used piecewise linear functions to model nonlinear relations between fire weather and fire frequency for each cover-type simultaneously. The estimated conditional rates may be considered as expected mean counts per unit area and time. It follows that these rates can be rescaled to arbitrary spatial and temporal extents. Our results showed fire frequency increased nonlinearly as aridity increased and more quickly in disturbed areas than other types. Road density exerted the strongest influence on the frequency of human-caused fires, which were positively correlated with road density. The estimates may be used to parameterize the fire ignition component of spatial simulation models, which often have a resolution different from that at which the data were collected. This is an essential step in incorporating biotic and abiotic feedbacks, land-cover dynamics, and climate projections into ecological forecasting. The insight into the power of Poisson additivity to reveal high-resolution ecological processes from low-resolution data could have applications in other areas of ecology.
Data from: Balancing ecological costs and benefits of fire for population viability of disturbance-dependent butterflies
Disturbance is a fundamental ecological process and driver of population dynamics. Ecologists seek to understand the effects of disturbance on ecological systems and to use disturbance to modify habitats degraded by anthropogenic change. Demographic responses by plants to disturbance are often well described, but demographic responses by animals are less understood. This limits development of applied strategies that leverage disturbance to augment animal populations. We estimated demographic and behavioural responses of an endangered butterfly, Fender's blue, Plebejus icarioides fenderi, to experimental burning in Oregon, USA. We monitored butterfly vital rates for four years post-fire. Prescribed fire killed Fender's blue larvae. However, fecundity was higher relative to reference/unburned areas for two years after the burn and overwinter larval survivorship was higher for a year after the burn. Fire treatments did not influence adult movement behaviour. We used matrix models to project butterfly population dynamics in fire-driven successional landscapes. We compared optimal burn strategies given targeted burns, such as prescribed fire, to undirected burns, such as wildfires. Disturbance enhances population growth rate under both strategies, and the optimal proportion of landscape burned is similar in both cases. However, targeted burning leads to substantially higher population growth rates. Synthesis and applications. Demographic models allow planning of long-term and large-scale disturbance by balancing initial costs of disturbance with subsequent benefits. We use matrix models to project population growth in fire-driven successional landscapes and contrast prescribed burns with undirected burns (wildfires). We also use these models to evaluate the influence of local vs. non-local dispersal. Because random (non-local) dispersal allows individuals to disperse into areas that were just burned, non-local dispersal always increases population growth rates in this system. This contrasts with source-sink dynamics in stationary environments, in which local dispersal leads to higher population growth rates. Our matrix modelling approach has broad application to other disturbance-dependent taxa surviving in anthropogenically modified landscapes, and could be more widely applied to animal populations.
Data from: Biomass consumption by surface fires across Earth's most fire prone continent
Landscape fire is a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. Predicting biomass consumption by fire at large spatial scales is essential to understanding carbon dynamics and hence how fire management can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase ecosystem carbon storage. An Australia‐wide field‐based survey (at 113 locations) across large‐scale macroecological gradients (climate, productivity and fire regimes) enabled estimation of how biomass combustion by surface fire directly affects continental‐scale carbon budgets. In terms of biomass consumption, we found clear trade‐offs between the frequency and severity of surface fires. In temperate southern Australia, characterised by less frequent and more severe fires, biomass consumed per fire was typically very high. In contrast, surface fires in the tropical savannas of northern Australia were very frequent but less severe, with much lower consumption of biomass per fire (about a quarter of that in the far south). When biomass consumption was expressed on an annual basis, biomass consumed was far greater in the tropical savannas (>20 times that of the far south). This trade‐off is also apparent in the ratio of annual carbon consumption to net primary production (NPP). Across Australia's naturally vegetated land area, annual carbon consumption by surface fire is equivalent to about 11% of NPP, with a sharp contrast between temperate southern Australia (6%) and tropical northern Australia (46%). Our results emphasise that fire management to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should focus on fire prone tropical savanna landscapes, where the vast bulk of biomass consumption occurs globally. In these landscapes, grass biomass is a key driver of frequency, intensity and combustion completeness of surface fires, and management actions that increase grass biomass are likely to lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions from savanna fires.
Data from: Age‐dependent habitat relationships of a burned forest specialist emphasise the role of pyrodiversity in fire management
1. Variation in fire characteristics, termed pyrodiversity, plays an important role in structuring post-fire communities, but little is known about the importance of pyrodiversity for individual species. The availability of diverse post-fire habitats may be key for fire-associated species if they require different resources at different life history stages. 2. We tested for age-specific habitat relationships in the black-backed woodpecker, a post-fire specialist. We used radio-telemetry to track fledgling and adult woodpeckers in burned forests and built resource selection functions to compare the effect of stand-, tree-, and snag-level covariates between adults and fledglings. 3. Fledgling black-backed woodpeckers selected habitat with more live trees than adults, and used more heterogeneous habitats burned at lower severity, illustrating strong age-dependent effects on habitat selection. Within selected stands, fledglings were less likely to use snags and more likely to use live trees when compared to adults, but both age classes showed strong positive selection for larger-diameter trees (live and dead). Over the 60 days after leaving their nests, fledglings showed an increasing propensity to use snags rather than live trees. 4. Our results provide evidence that the predation–starvation hypothesis, which posits a trade-off between foraging efficiency and the need to minimize predation risk, plays a role in structuring the age-dependent habitat use of a burned forest specialist. Adult black-backed woodpeckers selected resources associated with food availability, but these resources occurred in relatively open, exposed habitat. Fledglings selected habitat that provided increased cover, perhaps as a strategy to reduce predation risk. 5. Synthesis and applications. Globally, fires are increasing in severity and extent, leading to increased focus on fire-associated species that play keystone roles in facilitating biodiversity resilience. Our findings suggest that a diversity of patches burned at different severities may benefit post-fire specialists like the black-backed woodpecker at multiple life history stages. The increasing prevalence of large, homogeneously high-severity "megafires" may present an emerging threat even to post-fire specialists, and we urge land managers to consider opportunities to promote pyrodiversity in the face of novel fire regimes.
Data from: Post-fire recovery in coastal sage scrub: seed rain and community trajectory
Disturbance is a primary mechanism structuring ecological communities. However, human activity has the potential to alter the frequency and intensity of natural disturbance regimes, with subsequent effects on ecosystem processes. In Southern California, human development has led to increased fire frequency close to urban areas that can form a positive feedback with invasive plant spread. Understanding how abiotic and biotic factors structure post-fire plant communities is a critical component of post-fire management and restoration. In this study we considered a variety of mechanisms affecting post-fire vegetation recovery in Riversidean sage scrub. Comparing recently burned plots to unburned plots, we found that burning significantly reduced species richness and percent cover of exotic vegetation the first two years following a 100-hectare wildfire. Seed rain was higher in burned plots, with more native forb seeds, while unburned plots had more exotic grass seeds. Moreover, there were significant correlations between seed rain composition and plant cover composition the year prior and the year after. Collectively, this case study suggests that fire can alter community composition, but there was not compelling evidence of a vegetation-type conversion. Instead, the changes in the community composition were temporary and convergence in community composition was apparent within two years post-fire.
Data from: Incorporating disturbance into trophic ecology: fire history shapes mesopredator suppression by an apex predator
1.Apex predators can suppress smaller bodied 'mesopredators'. In doing so, they can provide refuge to species preyed upon by mesopredators, which is particularly important in regions where mesopredators are invasive. While most studies of mesopredator suppression focus on the response of mesopredators to human control of apex predators, other factors –including natural and anthropogenic disturbance – also drive the occurrence of apex predators and, in doing so, might shape spatial patterns of mesopredator suppression. 2.We examined the role of fire in shaping the occurrence of an apex predator and, by extension, mesopredators and small mammals in a fire-prone region of semi-arid Australia. We measured the activity of an apex predator (the dingo, Canis dingo); an invasive mesopredator it is known to suppress, the red fox (Vuples vuples); and two species of native small mammal (Mitchell's hopping mouse, Notomys mitchelli; silky mouse, Pseudomys apodemoides) that are potential prey, across 21 fire mosaics (each 12.56 km2). We used piecewise structural equation modelling and scenario analysis to explore the interactions between fire, predators and prey. 3.We found that dingoes were affected by fire history at the landscape scale, showing a preference for recently burned areas. While foxes were not directly affected by fire history, a negative association between dingoes and foxes meant that fire had an indirect impact on foxes, mediated through dingoes. Despite the suppression of foxes by dingoes, we did not observe a trophic cascade as small mammals were not negatively associated with foxes or positively associated with dingoes. 4.Synthesis and applications. Disturbance regimes have the capacity to shape patterns of mesopredator suppression when they alter the distributions of apex predators. Environmental change that promotes native predators can therefore help suppress mesopredators – a common conservation objective in regions with invasive mesopredators. The indirect consequences of disturbance regimes should be considered when managing disturbance (e.g. fire) for biodiversity conservation.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.