Fire regimes shape biodiversity: responses of avian guilds to burned forests in Andean temperate ecosystems of southern Chile

Avian Conservation and Ecology

article

Fernando J. Novoa¹  Tomás A. Altamirano¹  Kathy Martin³  José Tomás Ibarra¹ 

[1]ECOS ,(Ecosystem-Complexity-Society) Co-Laboratory, Center for Local Development ,(CEDEL), and Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research ,(CIIR), Villarrica Campus, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

[2]Fauna Australis Wildlife Laboratory, Department of Ecosystems and Environment, Faculty of Agriculture and Forest Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

[3]Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia

[4]Environment and Climate Change Canada, Pacific Wildlife Research Centre

[5]Department of Ecosystems and Environment, Faculty of Agriculture and Forest Sciences and Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability ,(CAPES), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

关键词: bird community;    disturbance;    fire history;    habitat legacies;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ACE-01999-160222

学科分类：口腔科学

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

Fire regimes of forests, i.e., time interval, frequency, extent, and severity of fire events, influence structural changes in the vegetation, and thus shape the composition of avian communities. We studied the diversity of avian guilds in sites with different fire regimes (unburned, burned 2002, burned 2015, and burned 2002 and 2015), testing both the "intermediate disturbance" and "vertical vegetation structure" hypotheses, in globally threatened temperate forests in Chile. From 2016 to 2018, we quantified habitat attributes (160 plots) and estimated avian richness and density (160 point counts). The site that was burned once in 2015 showed the highest density of standing dead trees at 96.5% higher than the unburned/control site, whereas the site that burned twice showed the lowest density of live trees, lowest average diameter at breast height of trees (DBH), and smallest volume of coarse woody debris. Overall, we recorded 35 avian species with the highest richness (n = 24 species) in the site that was burned once in 2002. We found that, 16 years after a site was burned, the avian community composition became relatively similar to the unburned site. The density of most avian guilds decreased in burned sites but granivores, shrub users, and migrants showed positive responses. Understory users, foliage users, and resident species showed negative responses to burned sites. These responses were strongly related to fire-driven changes in habitat attributes, supporting both of our tested hypotheses. Given that increasing levels of disturbance from fire are anticipated, future management of temperate forest biodiversity should consider that specific species and guilds will depend on remnant habitat attributes in burned sites.

【 授权许可】

CC BY