Prescribed fires often stimulate short-term productivity of grasslands that influences use by large, grazing herbivores. But studies examining burning effects on large herbivore population dynamics while simultaneously considering other environmental factors that might also influence population dynamics are lacking. We examined the influences of burned area, precipitation during the growing season, and possible distributional shifts from a nearby public hunt on maximum intrinsic rate of population growth (r_max) and environmental carrying capacity (K). We examined the influences of these predictors in a Roosevelt elk (Cervus elaphus roosevelti) population studied across 43 years where abundances ranged from 4 to 322 animals and prescribed fires ranged from 14 to 891 ha of burned area in Redwood National and State Parks, California, USA. The highest count across surveys conducted in a year was our index of elk (females, juveniles, subadult males) abundance. We estimated Ricker type models in a hierarchical, state-space formulation that separated observer error from process variation. We found a slight influence from burned area on both r_max and K but a stronger influence from precipitation during the growing season. The lack of a substantial effect from burned area on elk population parameters might be from a variety of factors such as spatial and temporal variation in intensity of prescribed fires and weak density dependence. Nonetheless, one positive benefit to elk population processes was that the patchwork of burning retarded encroachment of woody plants into forage habitat and, thus, maintained a constant area of forage habitat across 43 years.

指定的火灾通常会刺激草原的短期生产力，从而影响大型食草食草动物的使用。但是缺乏研究燃烧对大型食草动物种群动态的影响，同时考虑其他可能也影响种群动态的环境因素。我们研究了燃烧面积、生长季节的降水以及附近公共狩猎的可能分布变化对最大内在人口增长率 ( r _max ) 和环境承载能力 ( K ) 的影响。我们检查了这些预测因子对罗斯福麋鹿的影响（Cervus elaphus roosevelti) 研究了 43 年的种群，其中数量从 4 到 322 只动物不等，在美国加利福尼亚州红杉国家公园和州立公园，规定的火灾面积从 14 到 891 公顷不等。一年中进行的调查中最高的数量是我们的麋鹿（雌性、幼年、亚成年雄性）丰度指数。我们在分层状态空间公式中估计了 Ricker 类型模型，该公式将观察者误差与过程变化分开。我们发现燃烧面积对r _max和K都有轻微影响但在生长季节受降水的影响更大。烧毁面积对麋鹿种群参数没有实质性影响可能来自多种因素，例如规定火灾强度的空间和时间变化以及弱密度依赖性。尽管如此，对麋鹿种群过程的一个积极好处是，燃烧的拼凑阻止了木本植物对草料栖息地的侵占，从而在 43 年内保持了恒定的草料栖息地面积。