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Space fires
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Cables Home

Coast Horned Lizards and their habitat being further destroyed. Very unfortunate.

I have to wonder how badly this impacts the HL's long term. There must be pockets or areas that escape the fires due to their hybernation/estivation. How long does it take the ants and other insects to recover enough to support an HL population?

There is an area next to the coastal HL habitat I regularly hike that burned last June. I plan to check it out thoroughly this next spring to see what HL and ant activity is there.
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Cables Home

Hi Cable,
From personal observation I have noticed fires can have a positive effect on populations in the long term. A large area of CHL habitat burned here 5 years ago. Now the area has a dense population of both ants and HLs, even more so than before and higher than parts of the habitat that didn't burn. It seems both ants and HLs prefer open spaces over crowded growth. The area now has just weeds and small schrubs. Of course surrounding areas must still have HLs in order to re-populate the burned areas. I am not sure if this has been proven though.

No question the ants will be back quite quickly. When the smoke from the Hesperia area fire got severe the other night the colony M pergandei had their colony sealed up in no time flat. it was tightly cosed within a couple of hours. The following day when the smoke began to clear the ants were pu again pretty quick. Pogo and Messor nests go very deep, there is no question they are well protected from the heat of the fires and do the evacuation thing at the first real hint of trouble.