A fire management strategy of deliberate patch-mosaic burning (PMB) is postulated to promote biodiversity by providing a range of habitat patches with different fire histories, habitat qualities, and vegetation ages at a given scale. We investigated the response of avian fauna to fire, particularly species richness and community composition, in a landscape composed of a diversity of vegetation ages including long-unburned refuges (age 26 years), compared with a landscape of uniform vegetation ages recovering from an extensive and intense fire. There was no effect of heterogeneity in vegetation age on species richness at whole forest management block (about 6000 ha), or local (2 ha) scales. There were different responses of particular species to vegetation age. Nine species showed responses to vegetation age at local (2 ha) scales, which is presumably a surrogate for availability of key resources and which changes over time. Australian Pipit (Anthus australis Vieillot, 1818) were absent from swamp vegetation <3.5 years old, while Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus Shaw & Nodder, 1792) were only found in forest vegetation <3.5 years old. Year-to-year changes in local assemblages were detected after removing the effect of time since fire. There was no difference in effect of the two fire regimes on assemblage composition or feeding-guild structure. Mosaics of different vegetation ages had no net benefit for biodiversity, as measured by species richness and assemblage composition, at the forest block management unit scale. Different responses to vegetation age among bird species did not lead to increased bird richness at the scale of forest management block. A potential advantage of mosaics in conservation of avian biodiversity is through preservation of patches of older vegetation ages in the landscape, compared to the periodic extensive loss of older vegetation ages in wildfires. However, the absence of large-scale effects of vegetation age on bird species richness, the tendency for birds to specialize to fuel ages >5.5 years in the landscape studied, and indications of flexible responses of some species at landscape scales allows some flexibility in fuel management strategies and the scale at which they are applied with respect to avifauna.

中文翻译：

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野火和火拼对澳大利亚西南部鸟类物种丰富度和群落组成的影响

通过在给定规模上提供一系列具有不同火灾历史，栖息地质量和植被年龄的栖息地斑块，可以推测出一种故意进行斑块马赛克燃烧（PMB）的火管理策略，以促进生物多样性。我们调查了在包括长期未燃烧的避难所（年龄为26岁）在内的多种植被年龄组成的景观中，与从广泛植被中恢复的统一植被年龄的景观相比，鸟类对火的响应，特别是物种丰富度和群落组成。和烈火。在整个森林经营区（约6000公顷）或局部（2公顷）尺度上，植被年龄的异质性对物种丰富度没有影响。特定物种对植被年龄的反应不同。九种物种在当地（2公顷）尺度上显示出对植被年龄的响应，大概是关键资源可用性的替代，并且随时间而变化。<3.5岁的沼泽植被中不存在澳大利亚pit（Anthus australis Vieillot），而3.5岁以下的沼泽植被中却没有发现斑点Pardalote（Pardalotus punctatus Shaw＆Nodder，1792）。在消除自火灾以来的时间影响后，可以检测到本地组件的逐年变化。两种射击方式对组合物组成或进料行会结构的影响没有差异。在林区管理单位规模上，通过物种丰富度和组合组成来衡量，不同植被年龄的马赛克对生物多样性没有净收益。鸟类物种对植被年龄的不同反应并没有在森林经营区范围内增加鸟类的丰富度。马赛克在鸟类生物多样性保护方面的潜在优势是可以通过保留景观中较老的植被年龄的斑块来进行保护，与之相比，野火中较老的植被年龄的周期性广泛丧失则是这样。然而，在研究的景观中，没有植被年龄对鸟类物种丰富度的大规模影响，鸟类专门化为> 5.5岁的燃料年龄的趋势，以及某些物种在景观尺度上灵活响应的迹象，使得燃料具有一定的灵活性。管理策略及其在航空动物上的应用规模。