After the ‘Black Summer’ fires: faunal responses to megafire depend on fire severity, proportional area burnt, and vegetation type

Climate change and human activities have disrupted historical fire regimes, leading to complex and far-reaching impacts on global ecosystems. Despite extensive research in fire ecology, studies exploring vertebrate responses to megafires, and to nuanced fire characteristics, remain limited.
We collected camera trap data 3–27 months following Australia’s 2019–20 ‘Black Summer’ megafires from 30 burnt sites and 10 unburnt sites. Our data included 14 animal species/groups, encompassing mammalian predators, small and medium-sized mammals, large herbivores, and birds. We used generalised additive mixed models to assess the influence of time-since-the-fires, burn status, fire severity, proportional area burnt, and vegetation type on species' activity.
Models that included fire variables were well-supported for all species. The proportional cover of low-moderate or high-extreme severity fire had substantial support for five species, particularly herbivores, which generally showed a preference..., , , # After the ‘Black Summer’ fires: faunal responses to megafire depend on fire severity, proportional area burnt, and vegetation type

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.905qftts8](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.905qftts8)

This dataset encompasses independent species observations collected 3–27 months following 2019–20 Australian 'Black Summer' megafires. The data were collected using motion-sensing cameras across 40 sites, of which 30 were directly affected by the fires and 10 were unburnt control sites. Independent observations were defined as images of the same species captured on the same camera, separated by at least 60 minutes. The dataset includes an array of vertebrates, including mammalian predators, small to medium-sized mammals, large herbivores, and various avian species.

We used generalised additive mixed models (GAMMs) to analyse the dataset. We specifically looked at the impact of different predictor variables on species responses to the fires, including time since the fires,...