Fire regimes and biodiversity conservation in the Murray Mallee region

Citation

Land & Water Australia. 2009. Fire regimes and biodiversity conservation in the Murray Mallee region. [Online] (Updated June 23rd, 2009)
Available at: http://lwa.gov.au/node/2974 [Accessed Tuesday 26th of April 2011 05:40:32 AM ].

Fire is a major process that shapes the composition and structure of Mallee ecosystems. Ecological burning is commonly used as a management tool in the Murray Mallee to create a diversity of post-fire age-classes, promote patchiness during wildfire and to prevent large, intense fires that homogenise the landscape. Fire management is increasingly focused on maintaining heterogenous fire mosaics of differing fire history under the assumption that ‘pyrodiversity begets biodiversity’. This project aims to identify the properties of fire mosaics that enhance the persistence and status of native mammals in eucalypt-dominated mallee ecosystems.

Twenty-eight landscape mosaics (12.56 km²) have been selected for study across the Murray Mallee region. These mosaics were chosen to represent gradients in 1) the diversity of post-fire age classes and 2) the proportion of long-unburnt mallee in a landscape. Each landscape will be surveyed for mammals at ten survey points using pitfall traps, Elliot traps and soil plots. We will examine the relationship between fire mosaic properties and mammal species richness, species composition and the prevalence of individual species. Of particular interest are a number of small mammal species including the Mallee Ningaui, Western Pygmy Possum, Little Pygmy Possum, Common Dunnart, Bolam’s Mouse and Mitchell’s Hopping Mouse.

Project Objectives

to survey terrestrial mammals at multiple sites in each of a set of mallee landscapes selected to represent variation in fire mosaic patterns, especially a) extent of long-unburnt mallee and b) diversity of post-fire age classes.
to identify the occurrence and abundance of mammal species in different ‘components’ of fire mosaics (i.e. in vegetation patches of different post-fire age class and temporal fire regime).
to identify the attributes of landscape fire mosaics that are beneficial to mammal species.
to develop statistical models of the relationship between mammal species and properties of fire mosaics, for application to ecological fire management across the mallee region.