"Living Among The Ash: The Impacts of Wildfire on Wildlife Use Patterns on a Pinus banksiana (Jack Pine) Barrens"
Name:
Halloran_NENHC_23 - Danielle ...
Size:
11.37Mb
Format:
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007
Description:
Poster
Keyword
game cameraswildfire
predation risk
coursing predators
ambush predators
prey
regeneration
sandstone pavement barrens
jack pine
Term and Year
Spring 2023Date Published
2023-04-17Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
"Disturbances such as wildfire, ice storms, and pest outbreaks shape forest communities. Wildlife communities are shaped by successional trajectories that follow disturbances in terms of resource quality, quantity, and forest structure which influences predation risk. Our research aims to evaluate the extent to which wildfire disturbance has altered wildlife composition over time in a unique barrens community. The Altona Flat Rock is an ~2,000 ha sandstone pavement barrens located in northern New York. Overstory at the barrens is dominated by Pinus banksiana (Jack Pine) with an understory of primarily Vaccinium angustifolium (Lowbush Blueberry) and Gaylussacia baccata (Huckleberry). In July 2018, a wildfire burning 225 ha occurred, providing us the opportunity to study wildlife response to disturbance, and how this response changes over time as the forest recovers, regenerates, and grows - changing structural attributes and associated habitat characteristics. Using camera trapping, we monitored wildlife occurrences between the area burned in 2018 and the adjacent unburned (66 year old mature Jack Pine) forest from September 2018 (immediately following the wildfire) through 2023. Cameras were arranged to capture differences in wildlife use patterns in both the recent burn (n=2) and unburned (n=2) stands. Species-specific differences in wildlife occurrences were analyzed by year, season, and time of day. Overall wildlife species richness at the Jack Pine barrens was 31 and was greater in the burned (S=26) than the unburned (S=22) stands. The most common species were Odocoileus virginianus (White-tailed Deer) and Lepus americanus (Snowshoe Hare), and Canis latrans (Eastern Coyote). Immediately following the wildfire, wildlife occurrences were higher in the undisturbed stand; however by 2020 wildlife were using both stands equally. More recently, wildlife have again shifted away from the burned area possibly due to increasing mobility constraints caused by coarse woody debris. This study provides management guidance on wildlife habitat use patterns in response to wildfire as the barrens community recovers."The following license files are associated with this item:
- Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International