Fire and mice: Seed predation moderates fire's influence on conifer recruitment

Ecology

Volumn 91, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 1124-1131

  Zwolak, Rafal ^a,d   Pearson, Dean E ^a,b   Ortega, Yvette K ^b   Crone, Elizabeth E ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA   (United States)

^b ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESEARCH STATION   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA   (United States)

^d ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY   (Poland)

Author keywords

Deer mouse; Disturbance; Douglas fir; Peromyscus maniculatus; Pinus ponderosa; Ponderosa pine; Pseudotsuga menziesii; Seed predation; Seedling establishment; Wildfire

Indexed keywords

CONIFEROUS FOREST; DEER; EXCLUSION EXPERIMENT; FOREST ECOSYSTEM; MONTANE FOREST; RECRUITMENT (POPULATION DYNAMICS); REGENERATION; SEED PREDATION; SEEDLING EMERGENCE; SEEDLING ESTABLISHMENT; WILDFIRE;

ANIMAL; ARTICLE; ECOSYSTEM; FIRE; LARIX; MOUSE; PHYSIOLOGY; PINE; PLANT SEED;

ANIMALS; ECOSYSTEM; FIRES; LARIX; MICE; PINUS; SEEDS;

MONTANA; UNITED STATES;

CERVIDAE; CONIFEROPHYTA; MUS; PEROMYSCUS; PEROMYSCUS MANICULATUS; PINUS PONDEROSA; PSEUDOTSUGA; PSEUDOTSUGA MENZIESII;

EID: 77951161981     PISSN: 00129658     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1890/09-0332.1     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Agee, J. K. 1993. Fire ecology of Pacific Northwest forests. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.
2. Andersen, A. N. 1989. How important is seed predation to recruitment in stable populations of long-lived perennials? Oecologia 81: 310-315.
3. Bond, W. J., F. I. Woodwart, and G. F. Midgley. 2005. The global distribution of ecosystems in a world without fire. New Phytologist 165: 525-538.
4. Borchert, M., M. Johnson, D. S. Schreiner, and S. B. Vander Wall. 2003. Early postfire seed dispersal, seedling establishment and seedling mortality of Pinus coulteri (D. Don) in central coastal California, USA. Plant Ecology 168: 207-220.
5. Bricker, M., D. Pearson, and J. Maron. 2010. Small-mammal seed predation limits the recruitment and abundance of two perennial grassland forbs. Ecology 91: 85-92.
6. Broncano, M. J., A. Rodrigo, and J. Retana. 2008. Postdispersal seed predation in Pinus halepensis and consequences on seedling establishment after fire. International Journal of Wildland. Fire 17: 407-414.
7. Brown, J. H., and E. J. Heske. 1990. Control of a desertgrassland transition by a keystone rodent guild. Science 250: 1705-1707.
8. Brown, J. H., O. J. Reichman, and D. W. Davidson. 1979. Granivory in desert ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 10: 201-227.
9. Brown, J. K., and J. K. Smith, editors. 2000. Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on flora. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-42, Volume 2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ogden, Utah, USA.
10. Brown, P. M., and R. Wu. 2005. Climate and disturbance forcing of episodic tree recruitment in a southwestern ponderosa pine landscape. Ecology 86: 3030-3038.
11. Buhk, C., A. Meyn, and A. Jentsch. 2007. The challenge of plant regeneration after fire in the Mediterranean Basin: scientific gaps in our knowledge on plant strategies and evolution of traits. Plant Ecology 192: 1-19. (Pubitemid 350067437)
12. Burnham, K. P., and D. R. Anderson. 2002. Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. Second edition. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA.
13. Charron, I., and D. F. Greene. 2002. Post-wildfire seedbeds and tree establishment in the southern mixedwood boreal forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 32: 1607-1615. (Pubitemid 35404639)
14. Clark, C. J., J. R. Poulsen, D. J. Levey, and C. W. Osenberg. 2007. Are plant populations seed limited? A critique and meta-analysis of seed addition experiments. American Naturalist 170: 128-142.
15. Clayton, J. C. 2003. Effects of clearcutting and wildfire on shrews (Soricidae: Sorex) in a Utah coniferous forest. Western North American Naturalist 63: 264-267.
16. Conn, P. B., A. D. Arthur, L. L. Bailey, and G. R. Singleton. 2006. Estimating the abundance of mouse populations of known size: promises and pitfalls of new methods. Ecological Applications 16: 829-837.
17. Crawley, M. J. 1992. Seed predators and plant population dynamics. Pages 157-192 in M. Fenner, editor. Seeds, the ecology of regeneration in plant communities. CAB International, Wallingford, UK.
18. Fisher, J. T., and L. Wilkinson. 2005. The response of mammals to forest fire and timber harvest in the North American boreal forest. Mammal Review 35: 51-81.
19. Franklin, J., L. A. Spears-Lebrun, D. A. Deutschman, and K. Marsden. 2006. Impact of a high-intensity fire on mixed evergreen and mixed conifer forests in the Peninsular Ranges of southern California, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 235: 18-29. (Pubitemid 44550158)
20. Gashwiler, J. S. 1967. Conifer seed survival in a western Oregon clearcut. Ecology 48: 431-438.
21. Huggins, R. M. 1989. On the statistical analysis of capturerecapture experiments. Biometrika 76: 133-140.
22. Huggins, R. M. 1991. Some practical aspects of a conditional likelihood approach to capture experiments. Biometrics 47: 725-732.
23. Hulme, P. E. 1998. Post-dispersal seed predation: consequences for plant demography and evolution. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 1: 32-46.
24. Hulme, P. E., and J. Kollmann. 2002. Seed predator guilds, spatial variation in post-dispersal seed predation and potential effects on plant demography: a temperate perspective. Pages 9-30 in P.-M. Forget, J. E. Lambert, P. E. Hulme, and S. B. Vander Wall, editors. Seed fate: predation, dispersal, and seedling establishment. CABI, Cambridge, UK.
25. Kauffman, M. J., and J. L. Maron. 2006. Consumers limit the abundance and dynamics of a perennial shrub with a seed bank. American Naturalist 168: 454-470.
26. Keyser, T. L., L. B. Lentile, F. W. Smith, and W. D. Shepperd. 2008. Changes in forest structure after a large, mixed severity wildfire in ponderosa pine forest of the Black Hills, South Dakota, USA. Forest Science 54: 328-338.
27. Kulakowski, D., T. T. Veblen, and S. Drinkwater. 2004. The persistence of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) in the Grand Mesa Area, Colorado. Ecological Applications 14: 1603-1614.
28. Lentile, L. B., F. W. Smith, and W. D. Shepperd. 2006. The influence of topography and forest structure on patterns of mixed-severity fire in ponderosa pine forests of the South Dakota Black Hills. International Journal of Wildland Fire 15: 557-566.
29. Louda, S. M. 1982. Distribution ecology: variation in plant recruitment over a gradient in relation to insect seed predation. Ecological Monographs 52: 25-41.
30. MacKenzie, M. D., T. H. DeLuca, and A. Sala. 2004. Forest structure and organic horizon analysis along a fire chronosequence in the low elevation forests of western Montana. Forest Ecology and Management 203: 331-343.
31. Maron, J. L., and E. L. Simms. 1997. Effect of seed predation on seed bank size and seedling recruitment of bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus). Oecologia 111: 76-83. (Pubitemid 27266535)
32. Moore, J. E., and R. K. Swihart. 2008. Factors affecting the relationship between seed removal and seed mortality. Canadian Journal of Zoology 86: 378-385.
33. Ordonez, J. L., and J. Retana. 2004. Early reduction of post-fire recruitment of Pinus nigra by post-dispersal seed predation in different time-since-fire habitats. Ecography 27: 449-458.
34. Ostfeld, R. S., R. H. Manson, and C. D. Canham. 1997. Effects of rodents on survival of tree seeds and seedlings invading old fields. Ecology 78: 1531-1542. (Pubitemid 27484398)
35. Pearson, D. E. 1999. Small mammals of the Bitterroot National Forest: a literature review and annotated bibliography. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-25.
36. Pearson, D. E., and R. M. Callaway. 2008. Weed biocontrol insects reduce native-plant recruitment through second-order apparent competition. Ecological Applications 18: 148-1500.
37. R Development Core Team. 2006. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. (http://www. R-project.org)
38. Rood, S. B., L. A. Goater, J. M. Mahoney, C. M. Pearce, and D. G. Smith. 2007. Floods, fire, and ice: disturbance ecology of riparian cottonwoods. Canadian Journal of Botany 85: 1019-1032.
39. Roppe, J. A., and D. Hein. 1978. Effects of fire on wildlife in a lodgepole pine forest. Southwestern Naturalist 23: 279-288.
40. Savage, M., and J. N. Mast. 2005. How resilient are southwestern ponderosa pine forests after crown fires? Canadian Journal of Forest Research 35: 967-977.
41. Seber, G. A. F. 1982. The estimation of animal abundance and related parameters. Second edition. MacMillan, New York, New York, USA.
42. Simian, M. R., J. W. Terborgh, and R. A. Kiltie. 2003. Population regulation of a dominant rain forest tree by a major seed predator. Ecology 84: 431-438.
43. Stout, J., A. L. Farris, and V. L. Wright. 1971. Small mammal populations of an area in northern Idaho severely burned in 1967. Northwest Science 45: 219-226.
44. Sullivan, T. P. 1978. Lack of caching of direct-seeded Douglasfir seeds by deer mice. Canadian Journal of Zoology 56: 1214-1216.
45. Sullivan, T. P. 1979. Repopulation of clear-cut habitat and conifer seed predation by deer mice. Journal of Wildlife Management 43: 861-871.
46. Sullivan, T. P., and D. S. Sullivan. 1982. The use of alternative foods to reduce lodgepole pine seed predation by small mammals. Journal of Applied Ecology 19: 33-45.
47. Sullivan, T. P., and D. S. Sullivan. 2004. Influence of a granivorous diversionary food on population dynamics of montane voles (Microtus montanus), deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), and western harvest mice (Reithrodontomys megalotis). Crop Protection 23: 191-200.
48. Tallmon, D., E. S. Jules, N. J. Radke, and L. S. Mills. 2003. Of mice and men and trillium: cascading effects of forest fragmentation. Ecological Applications 13: 1193-1203. (Pubitemid 37546271)
49. Tappeiner, J. C., D. A. Maguire, and T. B. Harrington. 2007. Silviculture and ecology of western U.S. forests. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
50. Turner, M. G., W. H. Romme, R. H. Gardner, and W. W. Hargrove. 1997. Effects of fire size and pattern on early succession in Yellowstone National Park. Ecological Monographs 67: 411-433.
51. Vander Wall, S. B. 1992. The role of animals in dispersing a "wind-dispersed" pine. Ecology 73: 614-621.
52. Vander Wall, S. B., K. M. Kuhn, and M. J. Beck. 2005. Seed removal, seed predation, and secondary dispersal. Ecology 86: 801-806.
53. Vander Wall, S. B., T. C. Thayer, J. S. Hodge, M. J. Beck, and J. K. Roth. 2001. Scatter-hoarding behavior of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus). Western North American Naturalist 61: 109-113.
54. Whelan, C. J., M. F. Willson, C. A. Tuma, and I. Souza-Pinto. 1991. Spatial and temporal patterns of postdispersal seed predation. Canadian Journal of Botany 69: 428-436.
55. Whelan, R. J. 1995. The ecology of fire. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, USA.
56. White, G. C., D. R. Anderson, K. P. Burnham, and D. L. Otis. 1982. Capture-recapture and removal methods for sampling closed, populations. LA-8787-NERP UC-11. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA.
57. White, G. C., and K. P. Burnham. 1999. Program MARK: survival estimation from populations of marked animals. Bird Study 46(Supplement): 120-138.
58. Zwolak, R. 2008. Causes and consequences of the postfire increase in deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) abundance. Dissertation. University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA.
59. Zwolak, R. 2009. A meta-analysis of the effects of wildfire, clearcutting and partial harvest on the abundance of North American small mammals. Forest Ecology and Management 258: 539-545.
60. Zwolak, R., and K. R. Foresman. 2007. Effects of a standreplacing fire on small-mammal communities in montane forest. Canadian Journal of Zoology 85: 815-822.
61. Zwolak, R., and K. R. Foresman. 2008. Deer mouse demography in burned and unburned forest: no evidence for source-sink dynamics. Canadian Journal of Zoology 86: 83-91.