I have been busy of late and overlooked your post below.
I do not review the literature dealing with fire and is affects on wildlife. However, I am certain there must be gobs of such published studies that deal with fire and its affects on wildlife including herps.
Over the years, I have observed recovery (successional prcesses) of habitat after fires and clear cut timber harvests. Areas that incurred intense (hot) fires are void of vegetation to begin with but over time, plant species begin to invade such areas and animial species follow soon after. Recovery is more rapid in wet environments (coastal coniferous forests) and much slower in drier environments such as deserts.
As a matter of fact, a large part of the area in which I conducted the S. Rubber Boa study in the San Benardino Mts. had a fire history. I believe that intense fires had occurred in that region in the 1930's then again in the 1950's. The area was mostly open brush / grassland habitat with only young trees. Surrounding areas that had not undergone those fires contained mature tree in denser forest stands. The open area that had undergone fire visually contained far more lizards of 5 species than the forested habitat and the boas seem to have a higher density in the area undergoing recovery than in the more forested areas as well.
Had the area continued to recover toward more trees, there would have been a decline in lizard and boa densities and an increase in species, such as salamanders, that do better in more shaded habitats. That all changed last year as it is my understanding that again, much of that region underwent a severe fire.
Richard F. Hoyer
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Posted by: JDM at Fri Jul 23 22:27:11 2004 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]
Richard, do you have any references on studies where fires have reduced reptile numbers and that show the restoration of the population over the next few years? This seems like it would be valuable information for several applications.
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Jaren
