Category: Camera Trapping

Is the Fire & Fragmentation Project honeymoon period over?

31/5/2017

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Evidence for

Evidence against

Having carefully balanced the evidence, we conclude that the honeymoon period lives on.

Last week the Fire & Fragmentation Project team ventured out to the heathy woodland between Dartmoor and Edenhope to set up their second round of camera traps. This work is part of Zahlia and Lauren's studies into the effects of fire and fragmentation on mammals. They are currently going through the photos from their first round of camera trapping, and will compile their favourites soon. Please stay tuned.

Thanks to Sarah, Lauren and Zahlia for providing all the evidence.

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Fieldwork fun and other spring pursuits

26/11/2015

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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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27th International Congress for Conservation Biology

10/8/2015

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Holly attended the 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology in France this week to pose (and have a go at answering) the question: does patchy planned fire enhance ecosystem function?

She was among 2,000 attendees from 98 countries at the world’s largest ever conservation meeting, which was held in the middle of beautiful, buzzing Montpellier.

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Lyrebirds vs. Cameras

6/6/2015

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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.

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How does habitat structure influence animal responses to fire?

5/5/2015

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Predicting the effects of fire on biota is important for biodiversity conservation. Time since fire is often used to predict the occurrence of fauna, yet for many species it is change in resource availability to which animals actually respond. If resource availability is only weakly related to time, prediction of fire-fauna relationships will be uncertain.

In our new paper available as an Ecological Applications Preprint, we used a large diverse landscape in the Otways to investigate relationships between ground-dwelling mammal occurrence, time since fire and habitat structure (a measure of resource availability).

We found that time since fire was moderately correlated with habitat structure yet was a poor surrogate for animal occurrence. Habitat structure was a better predictor of occurrence than time since fire for all species.

Our results suggest that time since fire is unlikely to be a useful surrogate for ground-dwelling mammals in diverse fire-prone landscapes, where biodiversity conservation will benefit from a combined understanding of (a) fauna-resource relationships and (b) the ways in which both planned fire and wildfire alter the availability of resources important to animals.

Swan, M., Christie, F.J., Sitters, H., York, A. & Di Stefano, J. (In press). Predicting faunal fire responses in heterogeneous landscapes: the role of habitat structure. Ecological Applications.

Southern Brown Bandicoot

Swamp Rat

Long-nosed Bandicoot

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Fieldwork misadventures in Victoria's Central Highlands

11/4/2015

4 Comments

Holly, Matt, Julian and Wibi headed out to the tall wet forest of Victoria's Central Highlands this week.

They finished deploying remote cameras at sites established to better understand how biodiversity varies among patches of different time since fire, and where data are available, fire severity.

They avoided the heavy rain of Tuesday 7th but not the oncoming traffic. Highlights included blue mushrooms and a 20-cm worm. This sounds like the product of hallucinations but they've provided photographic evidence.

Please let us know if you can ID the mushrooms.

Blue mushrooms

Meeting the locals

20 cm was the distance between its eyes

Fire-side gatherings are perfect opportunities for checking your cameras function correctly

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Welcome to

Fire Ecology and

Biodiversity

Is the Fire & Fragmentation Project honeymoon period over?

Evidence for

Evidence against

Fieldwork fun and other spring pursuits

27th International Congress for Conservation Biology

Lyrebirds vs. Cameras

How does habitat structure influence animal responses to fire?

Fieldwork misadventures in Victoria's Central Highlands

Author

Archives

Categories

Links

Where to find us

University of Melbourne
4 Water Street
Creswick
Victoria 3363

Phone +61 (0)3 5321 4300 or email us

Welcome to Fire Ecology andBiodiversity

Is the Fire & Fragmentation Project honeymoon period over?

Evidence for

Evidence against

Fieldwork fun and other spring pursuits

27th International Congress for Conservation Biology

Lyrebirds vs. Cameras

How does habitat structure influence animal responses to fire?

Fieldwork misadventures in Victoria's Central Highlands

Author

Archives

Categories

Links

Where to find usUniversity of Melbourne4 Water StreetCreswickVictoria 3363Phone +61 (0)3 5321 4300 or email us

Welcome to

Fire Ecology and

Biodiversity

Where to find us

University of Melbourne
4 Water Street
Creswick
Victoria 3363

Phone +61 (0)3 5321 4300 or email us