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19 results for “pyrodiversity”
Severity outweighs pyrodiversity in shaping avian and bat species distributions following an oak woodland mega-fire
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Direct and indirect effects of fire on microbial communities in a pyrodiverse dry-sclerophyll forest
<p>Fire is one of the predominant drivers of the structural and functional dynamics of forest ecosystems. In recent years, novel fire regimes have posed a major challenge to the management of pyrodiverse forests. While previous research efforts have focused on quantifying the impacts of fire on above-ground forest biodiversity, how microbial communities respond to fire is less understood, despite their functional significance.</p> <p>Here, we describe the effects of time since fire, fire frequency and their interaction on soil and leaf litter fungal and bacterial communities from the pyrodiverse, <em>Eucalyptus pilularis</em> forests of south-eastern Australia. Using structural equation models, we also elucidate how fire can influence these communities both directly and indirectly through biotic-abiotic interactions.</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that fire is a key driver of litter and soil bacterial and fungal communities, with effects most pronounced for soil fungal communities. Notably, recently burnt forest hosted lower abundances of symbiotic ectomycorrhizal fungi and Acidobacteria in the soil, and basidiomycetous fungi and Actinobacteriota in the litter. Compared with low fire frequencies, high fire frequency increased soil fungal plant pathogens, but reduced Actinobacteriota. The majority of fire effects on microbial communities were mediated by fire-induced changes in litter and soil abiotic properties. For instance, recent and more frequent fire was associated with reduced soil sulphur, which led to an increase in soil fungal plant pathogens and saprotrophic fungi in these sites. Pathogenic fungi also increased in recently burnt forests that had a low fire frequency, mediated by a decline in litter carbon and an increase in soil pH in these sites.</p> <p><em>Synthesis</em>. Our findings indicate that predicted increases in the frequency of fire <span>may select for specific microbial communities directly and indirectly through ecological interactions, which may have functional implications</span> for plants (increase in pathogens, decrease in symbionts), decomposition rates (declines in Actinobacteriota and Acidobacteriota) and carbon storage (decrease in ectomycorrhizal fungi). In the face of predicted shifts in wildfire regimes, which may exacerbate fire-induced changes in microbial communities, adaptive fire-management and monitoring is required to address the potential functional implications of fire-altered microbial communities<span>.</span></p>
Incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for rapid post-fire management: A woodpecker case study
<p>Spatial and temporal variation in fire characteristics – termed pyrodiversity – are increasingly recognized as important factors that structure wildlife communities in fire-prone ecosystems, yet there have been few attempts to incorporate pyrodiversity or post-fire habitat dynamics into predictive models of animal distributions and abundance to support post-fire management. We use the black-backed woodpecker – a species associated with burned forests – as a case study to demonstrate a pathway for incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for adaptive management. Employing monitoring data (2009–2019) from post-fire forests in California, we developed three competing occupancy models describing different hypotheses for habitat associations: (1) a static model representing an existing management tool, (2) a temporal model accounting for years since fire, and (3) a temporal-landscape model which additionally incorporates emerging evidence from field studies about the influence of pyrodiversity. Evaluating predictive ability, we found superior support for the temporal-landscape model, which showed a positive relationship between occupancy and pyrodiversity and interactions between habitat associations and years since fire. We incorporated this new temporal-landscape model into an RShiny application to make this decision-support tool accessible to decision-makers: <a href="https://birdpop.org/pages/bbwoPredPostFireDist.php">https://birdpop.org/pages/bbwoPredPostFireDist.php</a>.</p>
Is green the new black? Black-backed Woodpecker vital rates do not differ between unburned and burned forests within a pyrodiverse landscape
<p>Woodpeckers can reflect rapid changes to forest health and often serve as indicator species to help guide forest management decisions. The Black-backed Woodpecker (<em>Picoides</em> <em>arcticus</em>) is known for its strong association with recently burned forests and is a species of conservation concern due to habitat loss stemming from post-fire management of burned forest. Recently, several studies have found the Black-backed Woodpecker occupying extensive areas of unburned (i.e., green) forests in the western part of its range during the breeding season, raising questions about whether green forests can support viable nesting populations in this region. We studied breeding Black-backed Woodpeckers in southern Oregon, USA to evaluate whether two vital rates critical to population recruitment – nest survival and post-fledging survival – differed between green and burned forests. During 2018, 2019, and 2021, we monitored 91 Black-backed Woodpecker nests (<em>n</em> = 34 in green forest, <em>n</em> = 57 in burned forest) and found that neither daily nest survival rate nor reproductive output (i.e., the number of fledglings per successful nest) differed between nests located in green and burned forest; however, nestling body condition was slightly enhanced in green forest. We also quantified survival of recently fledged individuals using VHF radio telemetry and found that the survival rate of birds in green forest was nearly identical to those in burned forest, with most mortalities occurring within 4 weeks of fledging. Taken together, our results indicate that Black-backed Woodpeckers in green forests were equally successful at breeding as conspecifics in recently burned forest, although nesting densities in the green forest we studied were lower than those in burned forest. Our findings indicate certain types of green forest, particularly mature lodgepole pine, can support viable populations of the Black-backed Woodpecker in the western portion of its range. This finding has conservation implications given that green forest occupies the majority of the forested landscape in this region and is often juxtaposed to areas subjected to high-severity fire. Therefore, practices that promote pyrodiversity – landscape-level spatial and temporal variability in fire effects – as well as connectivity between green and burned forest within fire-prone landscapes are likely to provide the greatest conservation benefit for this species. </p>
Temporal dynamics of soil fungi in a pyrodiverse dry-sclerophyll forest
<p class="MsoNormal">Fire is a major evolutionary and ecological driver that shapes biodiversity in forests. While above-ground community responses to fire have been well-documented, those below-ground are much less understood. However, below-ground communities, including fungi, play key roles in forests and facilitate the recovery of other organisms after fire. Here, we used internal transcribed spacer (ITS) meta-barcoding data from forests with three different times since fire [short (3 years), medium (13–19 years) and long (>26 years)] to characterize the temporal responses of soil fungal communities across functional groups, ectomycorrhizal exploration strategies and inter-guild associations. Our findings indicate that fire effects on fungal communities are strongest in the short to medium term, with clear distinctions between communities in forests with a short time (3 years) since fire, a medium time (13–19 years) and a long time (>26 years) since fire. Ectomycorrhizal fungi were disproportionately impacted by fire relative to saprotrophs, but the direction of the response varied depending on morphological structures and exploration strategies. For instance, short-distance ectomycorrhizal fungi increased with recent fire, while medium-distance (fringe) ectomycorrhizal fungi decreased. Further, we detected strong, negative inter-guild associations between ectomycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi but only at medium and long times since fire. Given the functional significance of fungi, the temporal changes in fungal composition, inter-guild associations and functional groups after fire demonstrated in our study may have functional implications that require adaptive management to curtail.</p>
Incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for rapid post-fire management: A woodpecker case study
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Direct and indirect effects of fire on microbial communities in a pyrodiverse dry-sclerophyll forest
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Temporal dynamics of soil fungi in a pyrodiverse dry-sclerophyll forest
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Is green the new black? Black-backed Woodpecker vital rates do not differ between unburned and burned forests within a pyrodiverse landscape
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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: Pyrodiversity promotes avian diversity over the decade following forest fire
An emerging hypothesis in fire ecology is that pyrodiversity increases species diversity. We test whether pyrodiversity—defined as the standard deviation of fire severity—increases avian biodiversity at two spatial scales, and whether and how this relationship may change in the decade following fire. We use a dynamic Bayesian community model applied to a multi-year dataset of bird surveys at 1106 points sampled across 97 fires in montane California. Our results provide strong support for a positive relationship between pyrodiversity and bird diversity. This relationship interacts with time since fire, with pyrodiversity having a greater effect on biodiversity at 10 years post-fire than at 1 year post-fire. Immediately after fires, patches of differing burn severities hold similar bird communities, but over the ensuing decade, bird assemblages within patches of contrasting severities differentiate. When evaluated at the scale of individual fires, fires with a greater heterogeneity of burn severities hold substantially more species. High spatial heterogeneity in severity, sometimes called 'mixed-severity fire', is a natural part of wildfire regimes in western North America, but may be jeopardized by climate change and a legacy of fire suppression. Forest management that encourages mixed-severity fire may be critical for sustaining biodiversity across fire-prone landscapes.
Data from: An experimental test of whether pyrodiversity promotes mammal diversity in a northern Australian savanna
1. The increasing awareness that a fire regime that promotes biodiversity in one system can threaten biodiversity in another has resulted in a shift away from fire management based on vague notions of maximising pyrodiversity, towards determining the optimal fire regime based on the demonstrated requirements of target species. 2. We utilised a long-running, replicated fire experiment on Melville Island, the largest island off the northern Australian coast, to test the importance of pyrodiversity for native mammals in a northern Australian savanna landscape. We first developed statistical models to determine how native mammal abundance has responded to nine years of experimentally-manipulated fire frequency. Next, given each species' modelled response to fire frequency, we identified the level of pyrodiversity and optimal mix of fire frequencies that would be expected to maximise mammal diversity and abundance, and minimise extinction risk. This was done for both the entire mammal assemblage and for the mammal species currently declining on Melville Island. 3. Fire frequency was a significant predictor of abundance of the northern brown bandicoot (Isoodon macrourus), black-footed tree-rat (Mesembriomys gouldii), brush-tailed rabbit-rat (Conilurus penicillatus), grassland melomys (Melomys burtoni), pale field-rat (Rattus tunneyi), and mice/dunnarts but not for the common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). 4. The geometric mean abundance (GMA) of the entire mammal assemblage was positively associated with pyrodiversity, but peaked at an intermediate value. Hence, maximising pyrodiversity would reduce native mammal assemblage GMA below its potential maximum. The fire history for an area that maximised the entire native mammal assemblage GMA consisted of 57% long-unburnt, 43% triennially burnt and <1% annually burnt. Pyrodiversity did not reduce the extinction risk, nor increase the GMA of declining mammals above that predicted in areas entirely annually or triennially burnt. 5. Synthesis and applications: We demonstrate a useful approach with which to develop fire management strategies based on the demonstrated requirements of target species. By comparing the optimal fire regime identified for the conservation of threatened species and that identified for the entire mammal assemblage, we demonstrate the flexibility of this approach to tailor fire management to address specific management priorities in other fire-prone environments.
Data from: Testing the assumptions of the pyrodiversity begets biodiversity hypothesis for termites in semi-arid Australia
Fire shapes the composition and functioning of ecosystems globally. In many regions, fire is actively managed to create diverse patch mosaics of fire-ages under the assumption that a diversity of post-fire age classes will provide a greater variety of habitats, thereby enabling species with differing habitat requirements to coexist, and enhancing species diversity (the pyrodiversity begets biodiversity hypothesis). However, studies provide mixed support for this hypothesis. Here, using termite communities in a semi-arid region of southeast Australia, we test four key assumptions of the pyrodiversity begets biodiversity hypothesis (1) that fire shapes vegetation structure over sufficient time frames to influence species' occurrence, 2) that animal species are linked to resources that are themselves shaped by fire and that differ at different times since fire, 3) that species' probability of occurrence of abundance peaks at varying times since fire, and 4) that providing a diverse set of fire-ages boost species diversity at the landscape scale. Termite species and habitat elements were sampled in 100 sites across a range of fire ages, nested within 20 landscapes chosen to represent a gradient of low to high pyrodiversity. We used regression modeling to explore relationships between termites, habitat and fire. Fire affected two habitat elements (coarse woody debris and the cover of woody vegetation) that were associated with the probability of occurrence of three termite species and overall species richness, thus supporting the first two assumptions of the pyrodiversity hypothesis. However, this did not result in those species or species richness being affected by fire history per se. Consequently, landscapes with a low diversity of fire histories had similar numbers of termite species as landscapes with high pyrodiversity. Our work suggests that encouraging a diversity of fire ages for enhancing termite species richness in this study region is not necessary.
Data from: Revisiting the pyrodiversity-biodiversity hypothesis: long-term fire regimes and the structure of ant communities in Neotropical savannas
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Data from: Continent-level drivers of African pyrodiversity
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Data from: An experimental test of whether pyrodiversity promotes mammal diversity in a northern Australian savanna
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Data from: Pyrodiversity promotes avian diversity over the decade following forest fire
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Data from: Age‐dependent habitat relationships of a burned forest specialist emphasise the role of pyrodiversity in fire management
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Data from: Testing the assumptions of the pyrodiversity begets biodiversity hypothesis for termites in semi-arid Australia
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Allen Brain Atlas
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International Brain Laboratory public data
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OpenNeuro
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