Fire and functional traits: using functional groups of birds and plants to guide management in fire-prone, heathy woodland ecosystem

Aim: Many dry forests and woodlands worldwide are fire-prone and support bird and plant communities shaped by fire. Changes in fire regimes, including the time between fires, have important implications for population trajectories. We studied the responses of bird and plant communities of heathy woodlands to time since the last fire, a key measure underpinning fire management, to evaluate whether current management strategies will enhance conservation of multiple taxa.

Location: Otway Ranges, south-eastern Australia.

Methods: We surveyed birds and plants at 38 sites, stratified by an 80-year post-fire chronosequence, and modelled the responses of individual species, functional groups and community composition to fire history. Model outputs were used to evaluate the impacts of fire management as guided by: (1) domains of tolerable fire intervals, a concept based on plant life-history traits, and (2) the spatial arrangement of post-fire age-classes, a surrogate for animal habitats.
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