Simulating fuel management for protecting regional biodiversity under climate change.

Climate change is resulting in larger, more frequent, and more severe wildfires which have increasingly negative impacts on people and the environment. Under these circumstances, it is critical to determine whether fire management actions can mitigate biodiversity impacts under future fire regimes. However, it is currently unclear how changing climate and management interact to influence the spatial distribution of risks to biodiversity.

Definition of reproductive structures in Eucalyptus for phenological data collection.

In an era where global climate change is shifting plant phenology, global meta-analyses of multiple species are required more than ever. Common language or references for enhanced data compatibility are key for such analyses. Although the Plant Phenology Ontology (PPO) addresses this challenge, it does not capture several relevant reproductive structures that are critical in species with long reproductive cycles, like many Eucalyptus species.

Integrating functional connectivity and fire management for better conservation outcomes.

Globally, the mean abundance of terrestrial animals has fallen by 50% since 1970, and populations face ongoing threats associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, climate change, and disturbance. Climate change can influence the quality of remaining habitat directly and indirectly by precipitating increases in the extent, frequency, and severity of natural disturbances, such as fire. Species face the combined threats of habitat clearance, changing climates, and altered disturbance regimes, each of which may interact and have cascading impacts on animal populations.

Circadian rhythms enable efficient resource selection in a human-modified landscape.

Animals access resources such as food and shelter, and acquiring these resources has varying risks and benefits, depending on the suitability of the landscape. Some animals change their patterns of resource selection in space and time to optimize the trade-off between risks and benefits. We examine the circadian variation in resource selection of swamp wallabies () within a human-modified landscape, an environment of varying suitability.

Biotelemetry marches on: A cost-effective GPS device for monitoring terrestrial wildlife.

The availability of low-cost wildlife trackers increases the capacity to collect valuable ecological data when research budgets are limited. We converted a commercially available global positioning system (GPS) product into a low-cost tracking device that sends data via the mobile phone network, and assessed its performance under varying conditions. We established a stationary test, deploying devices along a continuum from open urban areas to topographically and structurally complex forested sites.

Edge effects in fire-prone landscapes: Ecological importance and implications for fauna.

Edges are ecologically important environmental features and have been well researched in agricultural and urban landscapes. However, little work has been conducted in flammable ecosystems where spatially and temporally dynamic fire edges are expected to influence important processes such as recolonization of burnt areas and landscape connectivity. We review the literature on fire, fauna, and edge effects to summarize current knowledge of faunal responses to fire edges and identify knowledge gaps.

Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes.

Invasive and over-abundant predators pose a major threat to biodiversity and often benefit from human activities. Effective management requires understanding predator use of human-modified habitats (including resource subsidies and disturbed environments), and individual variation within populations. We investigated selection for human-modified habitats by invasive red foxes, Vulpes vulpes, within two predominantly forested Australian landscapes.

Survey design for precise fire management conservation targets.

Common goals of ecological fire management are to sustain biodiversity and minimize extinction risk. A novel approach to achieving these goals determines the relative proportions of vegetation growth stages (equivalent to successional stages, which are categorical representations of time since fire) that maximize a biodiversity index. The method combines data describing species abundances in each growth stage with numerical optimization to define an optimal growth-stage structure that provides a conservation-based operational target for managers.

Opposing Responses of Bird Functional Diversity to Vegetation Structural Diversity in Wet and Dry Forest.

Disturbance regimes are changing worldwide, and the consequences for ecosystem function and resilience are largely unknown. Functional diversity (FD) provides a surrogate measure of ecosystem function by capturing the range, abundance and distribution of trait values in a community. Enhanced understanding of the responses of FD to measures of vegetation structure at landscape scales is needed to guide conservation management.

Bird functional diversity decreases with time since disturbance: Does patchy prescribed fire enhance ecosystem function?

Animal species diversity is often associated with time since disturbance, but the effects of disturbances such as fire on functional diversity are unknown. Functional diversity measures the range, abundance, and distribution of trait values in a community, and links changes in species composition with the consequences for ecosystem function. Improved understanding of the relationship between time since fire (TSF) and functional diversity is critical given that the frequency of both prescribed fire and wildfire is expected to increase.

Predicting faunal fire responses in heterogeneous landscapes: the role of habitat structure.

Predicting the effects of fire on biota is important for biodiversity conservation in fire-prone landscapes. Time since fire is often used to predict the occurrence of fauna, yet for many species, it is a surrogate variable and it is temporal change in resource availability to which animals actually respond. Therefore prediction of fire-fauna relationships will be uncertain if time since fire is not strongly related to resources.

Ecological specialisation in habitat selection within a macropodid herbivore guild.

Specialist species show stronger resource selection, narrower niches and lower niche overlap than generalist species. We examined ecological specialisation with respect to habitat selection in a macropodid community comprising the western grey kangaroo Macropus fuliginosus, red-necked wallaby M. rufogriseus and swamp wallaby Wallabia bicolor in the Grampians National Park, Victoria, Australia.