Multi-taxon biodiversity responses to the 2019-2020 Australian megafires.

Autor: Gorta SBZ; Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Callaghan CT; Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Davie, Florida, USA., Samonte F; Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.; Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Ooi MKJ; Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Mesaglio T; Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.; Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Laffan SW; Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Cornwell WK; Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.; Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Global change biology [Glob Chang Biol] 2023 Dec; Vol. 29 (23), pp. 6727-6740. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Oct 12.
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16955
Abstrakt: Conditions conducive to fires are becoming increasingly common and widespread under climate change. Recent fire events across the globe have occurred over unprecedented scales, affecting a diverse array of species and habitats. Understanding biodiversity responses to such fires is critical for conservation. Quantifying post-fire recovery is problematic across taxa, from insects to plants to vertebrates, especially at large geographic scales. Novel datasets can address this challenge. We use presence-only citizen science data from iNaturalist, collected before and after the 2019-2020 megafires in burnt and unburnt regions of eastern Australia, to quantify the effect of post-fire diversity responses, up to 18 months post-fire. The geographic, temporal, and taxonomic sampling of this dataset was large, but sampling effort and species discoverability were unevenly spread. We used rarefaction and prediction (iNEXT) with which we controlled sampling completeness among treatments, to estimate diversity indices (Hill numbers: q = 0-2) among nine broad taxon groupings and seven habitats, including 3885 species. We estimated an increase in species diversity up to 18 months after the 2019-2020 Australian megafires in regions which were burnt, compared to before the fires in burnt and unburnt regions. Diversity estimates in dry sclerophyll forest matched and likely drove this overall increase post-fire, while no taxon groupings showed clear increases inconsistent with both control treatments post-fire. Compared to unburnt regions, overall diversity across all taxon groupings and habitats greatly decreased in areas exposed to extreme fire severity. Post-fire life histories are complex and species detectability is an important consideration in all post-fire sampling. We demonstrate how fire characteristics, distinct taxa, and habitat influence biodiversity, as seen in local-scale datasets. Further integration of large-scale datasets with small-scale studies will lead to a more robust understanding of fire recovery.
(© 2023 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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