The Klamath Bird Observatory

 

POST-FIRE RECOVERY

Research Question-

How does wildfire influence bird community composition and how do bird communities recover after fire?

 

Traditionally, studies measuring fire effects on wildlife have treated fire as a categorical variable (e.g., burned vs. unburned). Such analyses may be appropriate in high-severity fire regimes where stand-replacement fires create consistent and dramatic changes in vegetation. However, in many regions, including the Klamath/Siskiyou, mixed-severity fires regimes have highly variable effects on vegetation structure. We are using data on vegetation structure and bird abundance in two areas that were subsequently burned by natural wildfires to understand how mixed-severity fire changes habitat structure and influences bird community composition.

In 2001, Klamath Bird Observatory established and surveyed approximately 1000 stations in the Little Applegate Valley of southern Oregon. Between August 9th and August 31st 2001, the Quartz Fire burned 2,493 hectares (6,160 acres) of the Little Applegate Valley. This fire included six study routes and 57 stations within the fire.

Between 1992 and 1999 the USFS Redwood Sciences Laboratory conducted point counts in the Six Rivers National Forest. From August thru November 1999 the Megram fire burned 50,587 hectares (125,000 acres) of this area. This fire included 22 routes that had been previously surveyed in at least one year, with 92 stations falling within the fire.

These before-fire data, matched with multiple years of post-fire surveys, provide a before/after control/impact design that can be used to evaluate the effects of fire on vegetation structure and investigate changes in bird abundance and community composition. This analysis will provide a strong framework within which to evaluate the effect of mixed-severity fire on bird communities.

 

A point count station (marked by the flagging) where we have collected
information on vegetation structure and bird abundance before and after the Quartz fire.

PRESENTATIONS AT WORKSHOPS AND SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS

Seavy, N. E., J. D. Alexander, and C. J. Ralph. 2005. Fire effects in mixed-conifer forest: Does fire diversify or homogenize vegetation structure and bird communities? Invited presentation to the Society for Northwest Vertebrate Biology and The Wildlife Society joint meeting, February 2005, Corvallis, Oregon. [abstract]

Seavy, N. E., J. D. Alexander, C. J. Ralph. 2004. Effects of mixed severity fire on bird communities: a before and after comparison from Southern Oregon. Ecological Society of America Meeting, Portland, OR, August 2004. ABSTRACT

Seavy, N. E., J. D. Alexander, C. J. Ralph, S. Janes, and S. Norman. 2003. Wildfire effects on bird abundance in a mixed-severity fire regime: Treating fire severity as a continuous variable. Second International Wildland Fire Ecology and Fire Management Congress, Orlando, FL, November 2003. ABSTRACT

 

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Klamath Bird Observatory
PO Box 758
Ashland, OR
97520
(541) 201-0866
kbo@KlamathBird.org