Research Database
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Severe fire has impacted populations of the California spotted owl more than fuels management or drought-related tree mortality
Year: 2025
Reducing fuel densities is the primary tool available to improve forest resilience to intensifying disturbance, but implementation is constrained by concern of effects to mature-forest associated species, such as spotted owls (Strix occidentalis). While the negative effects of severe fire on spotted owls are well studied, the influence of drought and fuels management on populations is uncertain, impeding fuels management. We integrated a novel dataset of California disturbance history with passive acoustic monitoring to compare the effects of severe fire, drought, and fuels…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Frequent, heterogenous fire supports a forest owl assemblage
Year: 2025
Fire shapes biodiversity in many forested ecosystems, but historical management practices and anthropogenic climate change have led to larger, more severe fires that threaten many animal species where such disturbances do not occur naturally. As predators, owls can play important ecological roles in biological communities, but how changing fire regimes affect individual species and species assemblages is largely unknown. Here, we examined the impact of fire severity, history, and configuration over the past 35 years on an assemblage of six forest owl species in the Sierra Nevada, California,…
Publication Type: Journal Article