From unburnt to salvage logged: quantifying bird responses to different levels of disturbance severity

1. Forests worldwide are increasingly subject to natural and human disturbances, including wildfires and logging of varying intensity and frequency. Understanding how biodiversity responds to different kinds and combinations of natural and human disturbance is critical to enhanced forest management.
2. We completed an eight-year study of bird responses across a spectrum of disturbance types in Australian Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests following wildfires in 2009.
3. We found evidence of a gradient in bird species richness over the study duration. It was highest in unlogged and unburned (least disturbed) sites, decreasing through burnt unlogged forest (subject to high or low intensity fire), lower still in logged forest, and lowest in the most disturbed sites (subject to salvage logging without island retention). Retention of uncut islands within logged areas increased bird species richness above that found in areas that had been clearcut.
4. The greatest rate of increase p...