Fire management for biodiversity conservation : key research questions and our capacity to answer them

Fire management for biodiversity conservation : key research questions and our capacity to answer them

Driscoll, Don A., Lindenmayer, David B., Bennett, Andrew F., Bode, Michael, Bradstock, Ross A., Cary, Geoffrey J., Clarke, Michael F., Dexter, Nick, Fensham, Rod, Friend, Gordon, Gill, Malcolm, James, Stewart, Kay, Geoff, Keith, David A., MacGregor, Christopher, Russell-Smith, Jeremy, Salt, David, Watson, James E.M., Williams, Richard J. and York, Alan 2010, Fire management for biodiversity conservation : key research questions and our capacity to answer them, Biological conservation, vol. 143, no. 9, pp. 1928-1939.

Attached Files (Some files may be inaccessible until you login with your Deakin Research Online credentials)
Name			Description	MIMEType		Size	Downloads

Title	Fire management for biodiversity conservation : key research questions and our capacity to answer them
Author(s)	Driscoll, Don A. Lindenmayer, David B. Bennett, Andrew F. Bode, Michael Bradstock, Ross A. Cary, Geoffrey J. Clarke, Michael F. Dexter, Nick Fensham, Rod Friend, Gordon Gill, Malcolm James, Stewart Kay, Geoff Keith, David A. MacGregor, Christopher Russell-Smith, Jeremy Salt, David Watson, James E.M. Williams, Richard J. York, Alan
Journal name	Biological conservation
Volume number	143
Issue number	9
Start page	1928
End page	1939
Publisher	Elsevier B.V.
Place of publication	Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Publication date	2010-09
ISSN	0006-3207
Keyword(s)	planned burn prescribed fire wildfire policy implications management actions
Summary	Knowing how species respond to fire regimes is essential for ecologically sustainable management. This axiom raises two important questions: (1) what knowledge is the most important to develop and (2) to what extent can current research methods deliver that knowledge? We identify three areas of required knowledge: (i) a mechanistic understanding of species’ responses to fire regimes; (ii) knowledge of how the spatial and temporal arrangement of fires influences the biota; and (iii) an understanding of interactions of fire regimes with other processes. We review the capacity of empirical research to address these knowledge gaps, and reveal many limitations. Manipulative experiments are limited by the number and scope of treatments that can be applied, natural experiments are limited by treatment availability and confounding factors, and longitudinal studies are difficult to maintain, particularly due to unplanned disturbance events. Simulation modelling is limited by the quality of the underlying empirical data and by uncertainty in how well model structure represents reality. Due to the constraints on large-scale, long-term research, the potential for management experiments to inform adaptive management is limited. Rather than simply recommending adaptive management, we define a research agenda to maximise the rate of learning in this difficult field. This includes measuring responses at a species level, building capacity to implement natural experiments, undertaking simulation modelling, and judicious application of experimental approaches. Developing ecologically sustainable fire management practices will require sustained research effort and a sophisticated research agenda based on carefully targeting appropriate methods to address critical management questions.
Language	eng
Field of Research	050202 Conservation and Biodiversity
Socio Economic Objective	960805 Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity at Regional or Larger Scales
HERDC Research category	C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
HERDC collection year	2010
Copyright notice	©2010, Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Persistent URL	http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30032324

Document type:	Journal Article
Collections:	School of Life and Environmental Sciences Higher Education Research Group

Citation counts:	Cited 29 times in TR Web of Science Cited 43 times in Scopus
Access Statistics:	321 Abstract Views, 2 File Downloads - Detailed Statistics
Created:	Mon, 24 Jan 2011, 11:32:26 EST by Teresa Treffry

Deakin Research Online

Fire management for biodiversity conservation : key research questions and our capacity to answer them

Study

Research

Access Deakin

On campus

Connect