Impact of the 2019–20 drought, heatwaves and mega-fires on Greater Gliders (Petauroides volans) in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, New South Wales

Q2 Agricultural and Biological Sciences Australian Zoologist Pub Date : 2022-05-09 DOI:10.7882/az.2022.017
Philip Smith, Judy Smith
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

We have investigated the impact of the unprecedented drought, heatwaves and fires of 2019–20 on a threatened arboreal marsupial, the Greater Glider (Petauroides volans), in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, an area of over one million hectares. The study involved multiple post-fire surveys in 2020 and 2021 of 16 transects (eight burnt and eight unburnt) for which we had pre-2019 data on Greater Glider numbers. We were unable to find any gliders on two transects burnt at high to extreme severity (100% of eucalypt foliage killed in the canopy and understorey) but Greater Gliders were still present on all six transects burnt at low to moderate severity (44–77% of eucalypt foliage killed), although in significantly lower numbers (mean decline of 43% per transect). Greater Gliders feed on eucalypt leaves and their post-fire survival appears to be dependent on the presence of eucalypt trees with abundant unburnt foliage, which were absent from the more severely burnt transects. Even 17 months after the fires, Greater Gliders were still dependent on these trees, which constituted 36% of trees on low-moderate burnt transects but 77% of trees in which gliders were seen. Gliders were seen feeding on post-fire epicormic regrowth but generally avoided trees with mainly epicormic foliage, possibly because they provided insufficient protection from predators. Greater Gliders were also seriously impacted by the preceding drought and heatwaves, with patchy but significant declines on the eight unburnt transects (mean decline of 34% per transect). We measured the likely impact of the fires on Greater Glider habitat across the World Heritage Area by determining fire severity at a total of 773 precisely located points at which the species had been recorded. An extraordinary 84% of their known sites had been burnt, with 34% burnt at high-extreme severity, 50% burnt at low-moderate severity and only 16% unburnt. Combining these figures with the Greater Glider declines recorded on our transects, we estimate that the Greater Glider population of the World Heritage Area has been reduced by 61% by the extreme events of 2019–20. This is a broad extrapolation from a limited number of sites but it indicates the massive scale of the likely impacts.
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2019-20年干旱、热浪和特大火灾对新南威尔士州大蓝山世界遗产区大滑翔机(Petauroides volans)的影响
我们调查了2019-20年前所未有的干旱、热浪和火灾对大蓝山世界遗产区内受威胁的树栖有袋动物大滑翔机(Petauroides volans)的影响,该地区面积超过100万公顷。这项研究涉及2020年和2021年对16个样带(8个已燃烧和8个未燃烧)的多个火灾后调查,我们有2019年前大滑翔机数量的数据。我们在两个严重程度从高到极高的样带上找不到任何滑翔机(100%的桉树叶在树冠和下层被杀死),但在所有六个严重程度由低到中等的样带(44-77%的桉树叶被杀死)上仍然有更大的滑翔机,尽管数量明显较少(每个样带平均下降43%)。大型滑翔机以桉树树叶为食,它们在火灾后的生存似乎取决于是否存在大量未燃烧树叶的桉树,而燃烧更严重的样带中没有这些树叶。即使在火灾发生17个月后,大滑翔机仍然依赖这些树木,这些树木占低-中度烧伤样带树木的36%,但占滑翔机所在树木的77%。滑翔机以火灾后的表皮再生为食,但通常会避开树叶主要为表皮的树木,可能是因为它们对捕食者的保护不足。大滑翔机也受到了之前干旱和热浪的严重影响,八个未燃烧的样带出现了不均匀但显著的下降(每个样带平均下降34%)。我们通过确定总共773个精确定位的物种记录点的火灾严重程度,测量了火灾对整个世界遗产区大滑翔机栖息地的可能影响。他们已知的地点中有84%被烧毁,其中34%被烧毁,50%被烧毁,只有16%未燃烧。将这些数字与我们横断面上记录的大滑翔机数量下降相结合,我们估计,由于2019-20年的极端事件,世界遗产区大滑翔机的数量减少了61%。这是从有限数量的地点进行的广泛推断,但它表明了可能影响的大规模。
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来源期刊
Australian Zoologist
Australian Zoologist Agricultural and Biological Sciences-Animal Science and Zoology
CiteScore
2.50
自引率
0.00%
发文量
43
期刊介绍: The Royal Zoological Society publishes a fully refereed scientific journal, Australian Zoologist, specialising in topics relevant to Australian zoology. The Australian Zoologist was first published by the Society in 1914, making it the oldest Australian journal specialising in zoological topics. The scope of the journal has increased substantially in the last 20 years, and it now attracts papers on a wide variety of zoological, ecological and environmentally related topics. The RZS also publishes, as books, and the outcome of forums, which are run annually by the Society.
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