Research Database

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Indigenous pyrodiversity promotes plant diversity

Year: 2024

Pyrodiversity (temporally and spatially diverse fire histories) is thought to promote biodiversity by increasing environmental heterogeneity and replicating Indigenous fire regimes, yet studies of pyrodiversity-biodiversity relationships from areas under active Indigenous fire stewardship are rare. Here, we explored whether Indigenous pyrodiversity promoted plant richness and diversity in an arid ecosystem from north-western Australia. We selected landscapes that ranged from highly pyrodiverse and under active Indigenous burning to more coarse-scale and less diverse mosaics under lightning…

Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Social and Community Impacts of Fire

indigenous fire stewardship, biodiversity, fire regimes

Publication Type: Journal Article

Songbird response to wildfire in mixed-conifer forest in south-western Oregon

Year: 2014

We used 1 year of pre-fire and 4 years of post-fire data to quantify changes in the occurrence of birds at burned and unburned sites in a southern Oregon watershed after a 2500-ha wildfire. Our objectives were to identify bird species that increased or decreased as a result of this mixed-severity fire. Of the 27 species we investigated, we found evidence for fire-induced changes in the proportion of sites occupied by 13 species. Of these, most (8 species) were species that occurred at fewer sites after the fire than before. These changes were consistent with changes in vegetation composition…

Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fish and Wildlife Habitat

biodiversity

Publication Type: Journal Article

Is fire exclusion in mountain big sagebrush communities prudent? Soil nutrient, plant diversity and arthropod response to burning.

Year: 2014

Fire has largely been excluded from many mountain big sagebrush communities. Managers are reluctant to reintroduce fire, especially in communities without significant conifer encroachment, because of the decline in sagebrush-associated wildlife. Given this management direction, a better understanding of fire exclusion and burning effects is needed. We compared burned to unburned plots at six sites in Oregon. Soil nutrient availability generally increased with burning. Plant diversity increased with burning in the first post-burn year, but decreased by the third post-burn year. Burning altered…

Fire and Rangelands, Soils and Woody Debris

biodiversity, disturbance, management, sagebrush

Publication Type: Journal Article