• Private nature reserve managed by Bush Heritage Australia
• Located in Brigalow Belt Bioregion, central QLD
• BBB extensively cleared: 61% native veg cleared since European settlement in 1840’s
• Overarching goal: restore the condition, functioning & dynamics of the assemblages of species that would have been present prior to European settlement
• Fire important management tool: 1. Mitigate wildfires2. Maintain veg. structures that benefit faunal assemblages
• Mosaic burning approach
• Pyrodiversity begets biodiversity
• At what scale does pyrodiversity influence biodiversity?
Alpha (α) diversity
Gamma (γ) diversity
Beta (β) diversity
• Components of biodiversity:
Mosaic burning
No active control
Long unburnt
protected
Heterogeneous veg. mosaic
Removal key
resource(s)
Wildfire
Homogeneous veg. mosaic
++
++
-
-
--
-
Gamma diversity
Beta diversity
Alpha diversity
Alpha, beta & gamma diversity (birds):•Environmental heterogeneity (range in elevation)
» However, explanatory power varied depending on spatial scale& component of diversity under investigation
•Limited support for pyrodiversity begets biodiversity paradigm
Foraging guilds:•Different correlates of richness within particular guilds & depending on spatial scale e.g.
Extent longer unburnt vegetation:•Frugivores, insectivores, nectarivores, carnivores & canopy feeders
1. Things we can’t control important- landscape context
2. Not pyrodiversity, but extent of longer UB (> 10 yrs since last fire)
3. BUT management approaches considered appropriate are dependent on the scale at which a biodiversity conservation goal is conceptualised