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Alarmingly, it’s been two months since our last news item, so we’ve put together a collection of photos to illustrate some of our springtime activities. Many thanks to Julio and Alan for these photos.
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Superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) are famous for mimicking the calls of other species, as well as chainsaws, car alarms and camera shutters. Kate has recently discovered they also have a proclivity for attacking the cameras she’s using to study how fire edges influence animal distribution, abundance and movement in the Central Highlands. She’s put together a video depicting a feisty encounter between a camera and a particularly determined individual. The video contains prolonged scenes of strong violence and coarse language. Watch at your peril.  Patchy vegetation attracts birds that perform diverse functions The results of our new paper, available as an Ecological Applications Preprint, suggest that use of patchy fire to break up large expanses of mature vegetation may enhance ecosystem function. We studied the responses of bird functional diversity to TSF and two direct measures of environmental variation. Six bird functional traits (body mass, clutch size, food type, foraging behaviour, foraging location and nest form) were used to calculate functional diversity. Functional richness was negatively related to TSF, suggesting that recent prescribed fire creates patchy vegetation and provides greater opportunities for species to partition resources. Buff-rumped Thornbill and Superb Fairy-wren were among the seven species more common in young vegetation than old, and all seven species build dome-shaped nests. This nest type offers better camouflage and shelter against predation than more open nests, but we lack a definitive explanation as to why dome-shaped nest-builders prefer younger vegetation. We suggest that controlled use of patchy prescribed fire to break up large expanses of mature vegetation is likely to help sustain functional diversity. |
AuthorFire Ecology and Biodiversity at UniMelb Archives
June 2017
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LinksBushfire Behaviour and Management at UniMelb
Quantitative & Applied Ecology Group at UniMelb
Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research at UniMelb
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Photos contributed by Holly Sitters, Bronwyn Hradsky, and remote cameras.
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