Evaluating macroecological fire impacts on bird populations

Abstract

Fire regimes are context-dependent, as are the ways that animals respond. However, most information on animal responses to fire comes from short-term local field studies, which are hard to extrapolate across large areas for fire management while also capturing spatial variation. To address this challenge, we modeled data from eBird to map the direction, magnitude, and importance of fire regime associations at 27-km resolution across the ranges of six bird species used to guide management decisions in the US: red-cockaded woodpecker (Leuconotopicus borealis), Bachman's sparrow (Peucaea aestivalis), greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), pinyon jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), American goshawk (Astur atricapillus), and olive-sided flycatcher (Contopus cooperi). Our findings revealed previously undocumented landscape-scale variation in fire impacts on birds. Critically, the strength of fire regime associations varied widely in magnitude even when the direction of those associations (positive, neutral, or negative) remained constant. This analytical workflow provides not only a flexible approach for assessing macroecological fire impacts but also finer-scale information sufficient for resource prioritization and decision-making.

Citation

Stillman, Andrew N.; Jones, Gavin M.; Strimas-Mackey, Matthew; Duran, Guillermo; Andrews, Caitlin; Ligocki, Shawn; Auer, Tom; Ruiz-Gutierrez, Viviana; Sawyer, Sarah C.; Fink, Daniel. 2025. Evaluating macroecological fire impacts on bird populations. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2025: e70003.