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Abstract
To assess the impact of different-severity wildfires on bird habitat, habitat quality was determined by analyzing the degree of richness association, abundance and diversity of bird species and vegetation structure (richness, abundance, diversity and coverage). These attributes were quantified with four sampling sites for birds and five for quadrant-centered points respectively, for each of three different conditions: oak forest burned years ago, and burned at low and high severity recently, in an oak-pine forest in Chignahuapan, Puebla, Mexico. More vegetation and birds were found in the first condition, while the lowest values correspond to the high-severity burn condition. No significant differences were found in terms of bird diversity between the low and high-severity burn areas (t
56(2)=0.39, P>0.05).The vegetation structure showed a different diversity between the burned years ago and highseverity burn conditions (t
250(2)=14.70, P>0.05). Only the correlation between bird and vegetation richness was associated, indicating that forest fires which occurred a year earlier can reduce plant richness and this, in turn, may represent an improvement in habitat quality for some birds. Such was the case with
Certhiaamericana, a fire-adapted species that showed significant association with recent low-intensity burn sites.
Parent Publication
Citation
Ponce-Calderón, Laura P. Ponce-Calderón; Rodríguez-Trejo, Dante A.; Aguilar-Váldez, Beatriz C.; López-Pérez, Elvia. 2013. Forest fire impact on bird habitat in a mixed oak-pine forest in Puebla, Mexico. In: González-Cabán, Armando, tech. coord. Proceedings of the fourth international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: climate change and wildfires. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-245 (English). Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 139-146.
