Incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for rapid post-fire management: A woodpecker case study
Data files
Mar 28, 2023 version files 2.21 MB
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detection_covars.csv
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fire_covars.csv
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README.txt
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Run_LandscapeTemporalModel.txt
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Run_StaticModel.txt
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Run_TemporalModel.txt
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S.fire.age.csv
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S.jday.csv
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site_covars.csv
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static_S.jday.csv
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static_site_covars.csv
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static_X.array.csv
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X.array.yr1.csv
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X.array.yr10.csv
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X.array.yr2.csv
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X.array.yr3.csv
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X.array.yr4.csv
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X.array.yr5.csv
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X.array.yr6.csv
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X.array.yr7.csv
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X.array.yr8.csv
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X.array.yr9.csv
Abstract
Spatial and temporal variation in fire characteristics – termed pyrodiversity – are increasingly recognized as important factors that structure wildlife communities in fire-prone ecosystems, yet there have been few attempts to incorporate pyrodiversity or post-fire habitat dynamics into predictive models of animal distributions and abundance to support post-fire management. We use the black-backed woodpecker – a species associated with burned forests – as a case study to demonstrate a pathway for incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for adaptive management. Employing monitoring data (2009–2019) from post-fire forests in California, we developed three competing occupancy models describing different hypotheses for habitat associations: (1) a static model representing an existing management tool, (2) a temporal model accounting for years since fire, and (3) a temporal-landscape model which additionally incorporates emerging evidence from field studies about the influence of pyrodiversity. Evaluating predictive ability, we found superior support for the temporal-landscape model, which showed a positive relationship between occupancy and pyrodiversity and interactions between habitat associations and years since fire. We incorporated this new temporal-landscape model into an RShiny application to make this decision-support tool accessible to decision-makers: https://birdpop.org/pages/bbwoPredPostFireDist.php.
Usage notes
This data package includes three components:
(1) Text files of JAGS model code.
(2) .csv files with input data to run models and conduct the analysis.
(3) A README file with definitions of variables.
Descriptions of code files:
Run_StaticModel.txt. Specification of a Bayesian single-season occupancy model for black-backed woodepckers. This model corresponds to the "static model" in the main text. Run using R version 4.1.0 and JAGS version 4.3.0.
Run_TemporalModel.txt. Specification of a Bayesian temporal auto-logistic occupancy model for black-backed woodepckers. This model corresponds to the "temporal model" in the main text. Run using R version 4.1.0 and JAGS version 4.3.0.
Run_LandscapeTemporalModel.txt. Specification of a Bayesian temporal auto-logistic occupancy model for black-backed woodepckers. This model corresponds to the "landscape temporal model" in the main text. Run using R version 4.1.0 and JAGS version 4.3.0.