Species conservation in a fiery future

北美西部森林的野火在规模、频率和严重程度上都在增加。在不列颠哥伦比亚省，有记录以来最严重的3个火灾年份分别发生在2017年、2018年和2021年。在许多森林中，火灾后的抢救伐木发生在大型野火之后，从而增加了对野生动物栖息地的第二次严重干扰。这些巨大的景观变化对大多数森林野生动物物种产生了未知的影响，这对保护濒危物种的栖息地特别令人担忧。我对了解个体动物如何在这些转变的栖息地中导航，以及这些个体的选择如何影响种群动态和群落结构非常感兴趣。由于干扰随着气候变化而增加，预测野生动物如何应对干扰是很重要的，这样我们就可以防止物种灭绝。因此，我将侧重于两个目标：(1)制定一个预测框架，说明火灾和火灾后抢救伐木如何影响不同规模的野生动物，以及(2)研究干扰如何纳入濒危物种的关键栖息地指定和恢复规划。为了实现这些目标，我和我的学生将研究火灾大小和火灾后栖息地的异质性如何影响哺乳动物的猎物物种(例如田鼠、老鼠、雪鞋野兔)、哺乳动物的捕食者(例如山猫、渔夫、郊狼)以及猛禽和猫头鹰。七名研究生将接受培训，因为我们将重点放在火灾和抢救伐木的综合影响上，与仅有火灾后的影响进行比较，并评估如何将干扰纳入保护行动。接受这项研究培训的学生将学习现场技能、数据分析和地理信息系统、协作，以及如何向多个受众传播应用和政策相关的研究成果。这项拟议的工作扩展了我之前的研究，该研究表明火灾大小、年龄和火灾后的异质性在确定物种是否存在方面具有重要意义。我和我的学生还发现，火灾后的抢救伐木极大地减少和推迟了野生动物回归森林景观的时间，但我们还不知道这些影响会持续多少年到几十年。我还描述了《濒危物种法》规定的恢复规划和重要栖息地指定执行不力的情况。许多物种缺乏这些强制保护，许多名义上受保护的物种在面临日益严重的干扰时缺乏明确的保护。我提议的工作将促进人们对物种如何在面临多重严重干扰时坚持下去的了解。森林和野生动物管理人员将利用我们的结果为木材采伐决策和在被烧毁或砍伐的景观上保留野生动物的战略提供信息。在保护环境中，我们的工作将提供物种名单和关键栖息地指定的信息。因此，这项工作在加拿大直接用于确定哪些森林动物物种处于危险之中，支持它们的恢复，以及管理森林景观。

Wildfires in western North American forests are increasing in size, frequency, and severity. In British Columbia, the 3 worst fire years on record occurred in 2017, 2018, and 2021. In many forests, post-fire salvage logging occurs after large wildfires, thus adding a second severe disturbance to wildlife habitat. These substantial landscape changes have unknown impacts on most forest wildlife species, which is of particular concern for protecting habitat for at-risk species. I am deeply interested in understanding how individual animals navigate through these transformed habitats and how these individual choices ramify into population dynamics and community structure. As disturbances increase with climate change, it is important to predict how wildlife respond to disturbance so that we can prevent extinctions. I will thus focus on two objectives: (1) to develop a predictive framework for how fire and post-fire salvage logging affect wildlife at different scales, and (2) to examine how disturbances are incorporated into critical habitat designations and recovery planning for imperiled species. To achieve these goals, my students and I will examine how fire size and post-fire habitat heterogeneity affect mammalian prey species (e.g. voles, mice, snowshoe hares), mammalian predators (e.g. lynx, fisher, coyote), and raptors and owls. Seven graduate students will be trained as we focus on the combined effects of fire followed by salvage logging compared to post-fire effects alone and evaluate how disturbance is included into conservation actions. Students trained with this research will learn field skills, data analysis and GIS, collaboration, and how to disseminate applied and policy-relevant research findings to multiple audiences. This proposed work extends my previous research that showed the importance of fire size, age, and post-fire heterogeneity in determining whether species are present. My students and I also found post-fire salvage logging strongly reduces and delays the return of wildlife to forested landscapes, but we do not yet know how many years to decades these effects last. I have also described the poor implementation of Recovery Planning and critical habitat designation under the Species at Risk Act. Many species lack these mandated protections, and many nominally protected species lack clear protections in the face of increased disturbance. My proposed work will advance knowledge of how species persist in the face of multiple severe disturbances. Forest and wildlife managers will use our results to inform timber harvest decisions and strategies for retaining wildlife on burned or logged landscapes. In conservation settings, our work will inform species listings and critical habitat designations. This work is thus of direct use in Canada, in determining which forest animal species are at-risk, supporting their recovery, and managing forested landscapes.