Biodiversity and Conservation Science, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Locked Bag 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, Bentley, Western Australia, 6983, Australia.
CSIRO Land and Water, Private Bag 5, Wembley, Western Australia, 6913, Australia.
Ecol Appl. 2019 Dec;29(8):e01997. doi: 10.1002/eap.1997. Epub 2019 Sep 27.
In an era characterized by recurrent large wildfires in many parts of the globe, there is a critical need to understand how animal species respond to fires, the rates at which populations can recover, and the functional changes fires may cause. Using quantified changes in habitat parameters over a ~400-yr post-fire chronosequence in an obligate-seeding Australian eucalypt woodland, we build and test predictions of how birds, as individual species and aggregated into functional groups according to their use of specific habitat resources, respond to time since fire. Individual bird species exhibited four generalized response types to time since fire: incline, decline, delayed, and bell. All significant relationships between bird functional group richness or abundance and time since fire were consistent with predictions based on known time-since-fire-associated changes in habitat features putatively important for these bird groups. Consequently, we argue that the bird community is responding to post-fire successional changes in habitat as per the habitat accommodation model, rather than to time since fire per se, and that our functional framework will be of value in predicting bird responses to future disturbances in this and other obligate-seeder forest and woodland ecosystems. Most bird species and functional groups that were affected by time since fire were associated with long-unburned woodlands. In the context of recent large, stand-replacement wildfires that have affected a substantial proportion of obligate-seeder eucalypt woodlands, and the multi-century timescales over which post-fire succession occurs, it would appear preferable from a bird conservation perspective if fires initiating loss of currently long-unburned woodlands were minimized. Once long-unburned woodlands are transformed by fire into recently burned woodlands, there is limited scope for alternative management interventions to accelerate the rate of habitat development after fire, or supplement the resources formerly provided to birds by long-unburned woodlands, with the limited exception of augmenting hollow availability for key hollow-nesting species.
在全球许多地区反复发生大规模野火的时代，迫切需要了解动物物种对火灾的反应、种群恢复的速度以及火灾可能造成的功能变化。本研究使用澳大利亚一种需种子传播的桉树林地火灾后约 400 年的定年序列中栖息地参数的量化变化，构建并检验了鸟类如何根据其对特定栖息地资源的利用情况，作为单个物种和按功能群聚合，对火灾后时间做出反应的预测。个体鸟类物种对火灾后时间表现出四种广义的反应类型：上升、下降、延迟和钟形。鸟类功能群丰富度或丰度与火灾后时间之间的所有显著关系均与基于对这些鸟类群体具有重要意义的栖息地特征与火灾后时间相关的已知变化的预测一致。因此，我们认为鸟类群落是根据栖息地适应模型对火灾后演替过程中的栖息地变化做出反应，而不是对火灾后时间本身做出反应，并且我们的功能框架将有助于预测在这种和其他需种子传播的森林和林地生态系统中，鸟类对未来干扰的反应。受火灾后时间影响的大多数鸟类物种和功能群都与长时间未燃烧的林地有关。在最近影响了大量需种子传播的桉树林地的大规模、林分更替野火的背景下，以及火灾后演替发生的数百年时间尺度内，如果尽量减少引发目前长时间未燃烧林地丧失的火灾，从鸟类保护的角度来看，似乎是可取的。一旦长时间未燃烧的林地被火灾转变为最近燃烧的林地，就没有多少机会通过其他管理干预措施来加速火灾后栖息地的发展速度，或补充长时间未燃烧林地为鸟类提供的资源，除了为关键的空心巢物种增加空心可用性的有限例外情况。
