Bird Community Responses to Mixed-Severity Fire Regimes

Little is known about the effects of fire on bird populations in mixed-severity fire regimes. One might expect the bird community response to mixed-severity fire to be intermediate between responses to understory and stand-replacement fire. Both mixed-severity and stand-replacement fire occurred in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, in a 250 year old spruce-fir forest (Taylor and Barmore 1980). Half the species responses were invader and exploiter for the first 3 years after fire. Some canopy-dwelling species typical of unburned areas occurred in the mixed-severity burn but were absent from the stand-replacing burn. These included western tanager, golden-crowned kinglet, red-breasted nuthatch, and yellow-rumped warbler. The mixed-severity burn had less species turnover than the stand-replacement burn in the first 2 years postfire. Almost half the species responses to the stand-replacement fires were avoider, yet no avoider responses were recorded in the mixed- severity burns.