Abstract
Wildlife response to natural disturbances such as fire is of conservation concern to managers, policy makers, and scientists, yet information is scant beyond a few well-studied groups (e.g., birds, small mammals). We examined the effects of wildfire severity on bats, a taxon of high conservation concern, at both the stand (<1 ha) and landscape scale in response to the 2002 McNally fire in the Sierra Nevada region of California, USA. One year after fire, we conducted surveys of echolocation activity at 14 survey locations, stratified in riparian and upland habitat, in mixed-conifer forest habitats spanning three levels of burn severity: unburned, moderate, and high. Bat activity in burned areas was either equivalent or higher than in unburned stands for all six phonic groups measured, with four groups having significantly greater activity in at least one burn severity level. Evidence of differentiation between fire severities was observed with some Myotis species having higher levels of activity in stands of high-severity burn. Larger-bodied bats, typically adapted to more open habitat, showed no response to fire. We found differential use of riparian and upland habitats among the phonic groups, yet no interaction of habitat type by fire severity was found. Extent of high-severity fire damage in the landscape had no effect on activity of bats in unburned sites suggesting no landscape effect of fire on foraging site selection and emphasizing stand-scale conditions driving bat activity. Results from this fire in mixed-conifer forests of California suggest that bats are resilient to landscape-scale fire and that some species are preferentially selecting burned areas for foraging, perhaps facilitated by reduced clutter and increased post-fire availability of prey and roosts.
Highlights
Disturbance-habitat dynamics are widely understood to play central roles in the conservation of animal populations
The provision of heterogeneous late-successional habitat for species of conservation concern like fisher (Martes pennanti) and spotted owl (Strix occidentalis) in western North America is mediated by disturbance history, primarily fire and human management [1,2,3]
The notion of fire mosaics supporting greater faunal diversity has been advanced though evidence supporting this hypothesis is lacking or contradictory, for vagile species able to move across habitat edges [13,14]
Summary
Disturbance-habitat dynamics are widely understood to play central roles in the conservation of animal populations. The provision of heterogeneous late-successional habitat for species of conservation concern like fisher (Martes pennanti) and spotted owl (Strix occidentalis) in western North America is mediated by disturbance history, primarily fire and human management [1,2,3]. Large forest fires create heterogeneous post-fire landscapes [10] suggesting that mixed-severity fire may be the norm rather than the exception [11,12] In step with this emerging paradigm, researchers have begun to investigate the response of wildlife to mosaics of burn damage, with evidence of the importance of wildfire-maintained habitats [8] and resilience of late successionalassociated species to mixed-severity fire (e.g., California Spotted Owl, [1]). The notion of fire mosaics supporting greater faunal diversity has been advanced though evidence supporting this hypothesis is lacking or contradictory, for vagile species able to move across habitat edges [13,14]
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