Mice and Habitat Complexity Attract Carnivorans to Recently Burnt Forests

Roger Puig-Gironès,Pere Pons

doi:10.3390/f11080855

Abstract

Faunal responses to wildfire depend on the fire effects on direct mortality, habitat structure, and resource availability for animals. Despite the importance of large predators in terrestrial trophic webs, little is still known about how fire affects carnivorans (the mammalian order Carnivora). To evaluate the responses of the carnivoran community to fire, we studied three recently burnt forest areas in the western Mediterranean basin. Line transects were used to quantify evidence of carnivorans (mainly feces) and to measure environmental variables and resources (small mammal abundance, fleshy fruit availability, and plant cover). Throughout the study, we found 212 carnivoran field signs, 93% of them produced by red fox and stone marten. Immediately after fire, carnivoran occurrence was more frequent close to the perimeter of the burnt area, where fire severity was low, and in places with greater small mammal abundance. Small mammal abundance and plant cover had the greatest effect on the frequency of occurrence of red fox in the burnt area surroundings, and this increased with time-since-fire in the burnt area. Furthermore, the presence of red fox did not affect stone marten occurrence. Stone martens were found around the burnt area perimeter, probably because of their preference for high plant cover, and they were not significantly affected by small mammal abundance. The scat frequency of occurrence of both species was not significantly related to fleshy fruit availability. Accordingly, rodents and carnivorans were more abundant where the habitat was more complex. Our results show that the responses of some carnivorans to fire are influenced, directly and indirectly, by habitat structure and resource availability.

Highlights

Wildfires have broad effects on ecosystems, and are important drivers of biome distribution and the composition of biotic communities [1,2,3]
Throughout the study, we found 212 field signs of carnivorans including 52.4% belonging to red fox, 40.1% to stone marten, 4.7% to common genet, 1.9% to least weasel, and 0.9% to European badger
Generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) showed that the time—distance interaction affected the presence of carnivorans, with greater frequency of occurrence found close to the perimeter immediately after fire, while occurrence increased within the burnt area with time-since-fire (Figure 3a)

Summary

Introduction

Wildfires have broad effects on ecosystems, and are important drivers of biome distribution and the composition of biotic communities [1,2,3]. Faunal responses to wildfires are influenced by fire effects on habitat structure and resources, direct mortality, and an increase in predatory pressure [4,5]. The capacity to predict how fauna responds to wildfires is fundamental in promoting its conservation [9]. This capacity needs to be enhanced, mainly because of a lack of knowledge about the interactions between fire and other drivers of species distributions [10,11]. How fire affects carnivorans (members of the mammalian order Carnivora) and their biotic and abiotic interactions is still largely unknown, especially in fire-prone Mediterranean-basin ecosystems [9]

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