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- Title
Fire and biodiversity: responses of grass-layer beetles to experimental fire regimes in an Australian tropical savanna.
- Authors
Orgeas, Jérôme; Andersen, Alan N.
- Abstract
1. Up to 50% or more of the savanna landscapes of northern Australia are burnt each year, but the effects of these fires on savanna faunas are poorly known, especially for arthropods. 2. We investigated the responses of grass-layer beetles to three fire regimes (unburnt — fires excluded; early — annual fires lit early during the dry season; late — annual fires lit late during the dry season) as part of a landscape-scale fire experiment at Kapalga in Australia's Northern Territory, where replicated fire regimes were applied to 15-20-km[sup 2] landscape units over a 5-year period. We also sought to identify beetle species that might act as indicators of particular fire regimes, and examined the extent to which analysis at the family level is sufficient to reveal patterns evident from species-level analysis. 3. Beetles were sampled using sweep nets during February (mid-wet season) and May (end of wet season) each year, from 1989 (18 months prior to the imposition of fire treatments) to 1995 (after 5 years of treatments). 4. A total of 3865 beetles from 233 species was recorded, with the dominant families Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles) and Curculionidae (weevils) contributing 91% of all beetles and 57% of total species. 5. Total beetle abundance, species richness, family richness and the abundances of one of the 10 most common species were significantly affected by fire treatment according to ANOVA. In all cases, beetle abundance and richness were similar in the two burning treatments, but greater than in the unburnt treatment. These differences were only apparent during the second half of the experiment. The responses were mirrored by changes in composition at species, family and guild levels, according to multivariate analysis. 6. According to indicator analysis, five beetle species were significant indicators of late fires, and one of early fires. All these species were infrequently recorded and therefore of limited use for management. However,...
- Subjects
NORTHERN Australia; BEETLES; SAVANNA ecology; GRASSLAND fires; FIRE ecology
- Publication
Journal of Applied Ecology, 2001, Vol 38, Issue 1, p49
- ISSN
0021-8901
- Publication type
Article