- Title:
-
The Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project: Gaining a better understanding of the needs of fauna in relation to fire
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- BCRC
- Authors:
- Assoc Prof Mike Clarke and Assoc Prof Andrew Bennett
- Location:
- Australia, VIC, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Ecological fire management in Australia is often built on two asumptions: i) that plant diversity begets animal diversity and ii) that if one aims for a mosaic of different vegetation types and seral stages the needs of aimals will be met. However, there is a chronic scarcity of ecological data suitable for testing these two assumptions.
Consequently, we have undertaken a multidisciplinary study of the responses of a range of animal groups (birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and key invertebrates) to fire in the Murray Mallee region of SA, NSW and Victoria to test the first assumption. In order to test the second assumption we also compared the animal diversity of landscapes of exhibiting different levels of pyrodiversity at a range of spatial scales.
This required sampling fauna, flora, habitat characteristics and fire history at both the landscape (n=28 12.6km2 landscapes) and the site level (n=280 pitfall lines, 560 bird survey points) over a period of two years. The study detected seven species of mammal, 56 species of reptile, two amphibians, 87 species of bird, 13 species of termite and seven species of psyllid. We compared the responses of the different animal groups to differing levels of pyrodiversity to identify common trends and differences among taxonomic groups. Models that identify fire regime and habitat characteristics associated with high levels of animal diversity are then used as a basis for generating spatially-explicit maps.
These maps can then be used by managers to identify areas of high biodiversity value and also interactively to simulate the likely impact on fauna of proposed prescribed burning scenarios.
