Experimental designs for studying small-mammal responses to fire in North American conifer forests
Jenna Hutchen A , Logan A. Volkmann A and Karen E. Hodges A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Biology, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Science Building, 1177 Research Road, Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7, Canada.
B Corresponding author. Email: karen.hodges@ubc.ca
International Journal of Wildland Fire 26(6) 523-531 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF16223
Submitted: 27 September 2016 Accepted: 10 March 2017 Published: 2 May 2017
Abstract
Climate change is altering fire regimes. As fire regimes change, it is important to understand how mammals respond to these altered post-fire landscapes. Because fires vary in size, severity and landscape context, it is important to know the experimental designs and response variables used to address post-fire responses of mammals. We analysed 48 papers published from 1988 to 2015 that examined responses of small mammals to natural or prescribed fire in North American conifer forests. These papers used different experimental contrasts (e.g. burned vs unburned sites, time series, within-fire heterogeneity). Most studies (89.6%) presented species richness or index-derived abundances of common species as their response variable(s). Many studies did not fully describe the fires being examined; these omissions make it more difficult to interpret and compare results among studies. The limited scope of inference presented by the papers in this review leads us to recommend a minimal set of information that should be presented about each fire studied. We conclude by outlining how different experimental designs and response variables can be used for effective inference. We highlight major pathways forward for examining responses of small forest mammals to the important changes in fire regime that are occurring.
Additional keywords: boreal forest, deer mice, deermice, inference, montane forest, prescribed fire, species richness, wildfire.
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