Davis Robert A, Doherty Tim S
School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia; School of Animal Biology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia.
PLoS One. 2015 May 20;10(5):e0127925. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127925. eCollection 2015.
Reptiles in urban remnants are threatened with extinction by increased fire frequency, habitat fragmentation caused by urban development, and competition and predation from exotic species. Understanding how urban reptiles respond to and recover from such disturbances is key to their conservation. We monitored the recovery of an urban reptile community for five years following a summer wildfire at Kings Park in Perth, Western Australia, using pitfall trapping at five burnt and five unburnt sites. The reptile community recovered rapidly following the fire. Unburnt sites initially had higher species richness and total abundance, but burnt sites rapidly converged, recording a similar total abundance to unburnt areas within two years, and a similar richness within three years. The leaf-litter inhabiting skink Hemiergis quadrilineata was strongly associated with longer unburnt sites and may be responding to the loss of leaf litter following the fire. Six rarely-captured species were also strongly associated with unburnt areas and were rarely or never recorded at burnt sites, whereas two other rarely-captured species were associated with burnt sites. We also found that one lizard species, Ctenotus fallens, had a smaller average body length in burnt sites compared to unburnt sites for four out of the five years of monitoring. Our study indicates that fire management that homogenises large areas of habitat through frequent burning may threaten some species due to their preference for longer unburnt habitat. Careful management of fire may be needed to maximise habitat suitability within the urban landscape.
城市残余区域中的爬行动物因火灾频率增加、城市发展导致的栖息地破碎化以及外来物种的竞争和捕食而面临灭绝威胁。了解城市爬行动物如何应对此类干扰并从中恢复是其保护的关键。我们在西澳大利亚州珀斯的国王公园发生夏季野火后的五年里，通过在五个烧毁地点和五个未烧毁地点设置陷阱，监测了一个城市爬行动物群落的恢复情况。火灾后爬行动物群落迅速恢复。未烧毁地点最初物种丰富度和总丰度较高，但烧毁地点迅速趋同，在两年内记录到与未烧毁区域相似的总丰度，在三年内记录到相似的丰富度。栖息在落叶层中的四线半叶趾虎与未烧毁时间较长的地点密切相关，可能是对火灾后落叶层的丧失做出反应。六种很少被捕获的物种也与未烧毁区域密切相关，在烧毁地点很少或从未被记录到，而另外两种很少被捕获的物种则与烧毁地点相关。我们还发现，在五年监测中的四年里，一种蜥蜴物种——坠落栉趾虎，在烧毁地点的平均体长比未烧毁地点小。我们的研究表明，通过频繁燃烧使大片栖息地同质化的火灾管理可能会威胁到一些物种，因为它们更喜欢未烧毁时间较长的栖息地。可能需要谨慎管理火灾，以在城市景观中最大限度地提高栖息地适宜性。
