10.5061/DRYAD.3FFBG79HQ
Geary, William
0000-0002-6520-689X
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Buchan, Anne
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Allen, Teigan
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Attard, David
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Bruce, Matthew
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Collins, Luke
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Ecker, Tiarne
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Fairman, Thomas
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Holliings, Tracey
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Loeffler, Ella
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Muscatello, Angela
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Parkes, David
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Thomson, James
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
White, Matt
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Kelly, Ella
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Responding to the biodiversity impacts of a megafire: a case study from
south-eastern Australia’s Black Summer
Dryad
dataset
2021
megafire
spatial conservation action planning
wildfire
prioritisation
Fire management
Biodiversity
2021-05-03T00:00:00Z
2021-05-03T00:00:00Z
en
3633612 bytes
5
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Aim: Megafires are increasing in intensity and frequency globally. The
impacts of megafires on biodiversity can be severe, so conservation
managers must be able to respond rapidly to quantify their impacts,
initiate recovery efforts and consider conservation options within and
beyond the burned extent. We outline a framework that can be used to guide
conservation responses to megafires, using the 1.5 million hectare
2019/2020 megafires in Victoria, Australia, as a case study. Location:
Victoria, Australia. Methods: Our framework uses a suite of
decision-support tools, including species attribute databases, ~4,200
species distribution models and a spatially-explicit conservation action
planning tool to quantify the potential effects of megafires on
biodiversity, and identify species-specific and landscape-scale
conservation actions that can assist recovery. Results: Our approach
identified 346 species in Victoria that had >40% of their modelled
habitat affected, including 45 threatened species, and 102 species with
>40% of their modelled habitat affected by high severity fire. We
then identified 21 candidate recovery actions that are expected to assist
the recovery of biodiversity. For relevant landscape-scale actions, we
identified locations within and adjacent to the megafire extent that are
expected to deliver cost-effective conservation gains. Main conclusion:
The 2019/2020 megafires in south-eastern Australia affected the habitat of
many species and plant communities. Our framework identified a range of
single-species (e.g. supplementary feeding, translocation) and
landscape-scale actions (e.g. protection of refuges, invasive species
management) that can help biodiversity recover from megafires.
Conservation managers will be increasingly required to rapidly identify
conservation actions that can help species recovery from megafires,
especially under a changing climate. Our approach brings together commonly
used datasets (e.g. species distribution maps, trait databases, fire
severity mapping) to help guide conservation responses and can therefore
be used to help biodiversity recover from future megafires across the
world.