Bird survey data from the Victorian Central Highlands 2004 to 2019. Associated with paper 'Rapid bird species recovery following high-severity wildfire but in the absence of early successional specialists' for Diversity and Distributions

Full description

We established 85 one-hectare permanent bird-monitoring sites. These sites were at least 750 m apart, although there was often 5-10 km between sites. We assembled data gathered from surveys completed between 2004 and 2019. We determined the severity of the 2009 fire at each site by on-ground vegetation surveys completed within four weeks of the fire. We assigned each site to one of three categories: (1) no fire in 2009, (2) moderate severity fire in 2009 where the ground and understorey layers had the majority of their above-ground biomass scorched or consumed but the overstorey remained green, and (3) high fire severity in 2009 in which plants in the ground, shrub, understorey and eucalypt tree layers had the majority of their above-ground biomass scorched or consumed. Sixteen of our sites burned at high severity, 28 at moderate severity, and 41 did not experience fire in 2009. Notably, vegetation monitoring over the post-fire period (2009-2019) indicates there has been rapid vegetation growth in burnt areas, with the canopy height of regenerating eucalypts often approaching 15 metres (Bowd et al., 2021a). We completed bird surveys in late November and early December in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2019.

Notes

382KB.

Significance statement

Results of bird surveys in Victoria, before and after the Black Saturday fires of 2009