Short-term impacts of wildfires on the diversity and activity patterns of medium-sized mammals in Mediterranean coastal pine forests

Abstract

Mammals are among the vertebrate groups with the least wildfire-related information worldwide mostly due to difficulties related to the complexity of mammal communities and underdeveloped methods to assess the direct and indirect effects of wildfires on these animals. Most of the information available is about long-term responses to wildfires often dismissing the initial transformations in the affected ecosystems after the event. In this study, we aimed to identify changes in the short-term post-fire activity of a medium-sized mammal community after a high-severity wildfire in a recently burnt Mediterranean coastal pine forest and in an identical contiguous unburnt area. Evidence of each species presence in the study area was registered at several checkpoints along selected forest paths in the burnt and unburnt areas. Potential factors of disturbance and feeding sources were also identified in each area. Data collection was carried out 3 months after the wildfire and repeated 15 months later. Spatial and temporal variation in distribution and activity between areas for each identified taxon showed different responses based on each species mobility, adaptability to changes in the ecosystem, tolerance to human presence, and diet, including prey availability. Overall activity and number of species decreased in the burnt area during the first months after the wildfire but after 15 months it increased to values approximate to the observed in the unburnt area. This study gives detailed information on mammal activity in the short-term period after a wildfire, contributing with novel information about the process of recolonization of burnt areas by mammals in Mediterranean ecosystems. It also develops post-fire assessment methods for mammal communities in burnt areas that can be used to provide a quicker response to post-fire mitigation measures.