Megafires attract avian scavenging but carcasses still persist

AIM

The effects of fires on vertebrate scavengers have not been characterised despite the importance of scavenging in shaping food web dynamics. We assessed whether the 2019/2020 megafires in Australia shifted the species richness, carcass detection, and feeding times of vertebrate scavengers, and whether the fire affected carcasses persistence times.

LOCATION

Blue Mountains, south-eastern Australia.

METHOD

We monitored vertebrate scavengers via remote cameras on a total of 60 experimentally placed kangaroo carcasses for 30 days in two periods before the megafire (January 2018 and 2019) and one period after the megafire (March 2020) in both open and closed canopy habitats. We compared vertebrate species richness, carcass discovery and scavenging activity before and after the fire and between the two habitats. We also assessed carcass persistence (time to carcass removal) before and after the fire and between the two habitats.

RESULTS

We collected more than 689,000 i...