Invertebrate Community Response to a Shifting Mosaic of Habitat |
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| Institution: | 1. Professor and Chair, Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, USA;2. Professor, Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA;3. Former Graduate Student, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA;4. Unit Leader, US Geological Survey, Oklahoma Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Oklahoma State University, 404 Life Science West, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA;1. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois as Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 USA;2. Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois as Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 USA;3. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA;4. Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078 USA;1. The University of Queensland, Landscape Ecology and Conservation Group, School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, St Lucia, Brisbane 4072, Australia;2. The University of Queensland, School of Biological Sciences, St Lucia, Brisbane 4072, Australia;1. Department of Ecology and Hydrology, Regional Campus of International Excellence Campus Mare Nostrum-University of Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, Murcia, Spain;2. Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), 12587 Berlin, Germany;3. Institute of Biology, Freie Universität, 14195 Berlin, Germany;4. Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain;5. Asociación de Naturalistas del Sureste (ANSE), Murcia, Spain;6. Sanidad Agrícola Econex S.L., Spain;7. Department of Soil and Water Conservation, CSIC-CEBAS, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, Murcia, Spain;8. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA |
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| Abstract: | Grazing management has focused largely on promoting vegetation homogeneity through uniform distribution of grazing to minimize area in a pasture that is either heavily disturbed or undisturbed. An alternative management model that couples grazing and fire (i.e., patch burning) to promote heterogeneity argues that grazing and fire interact through a series of positive and negative feedbacks to cause a shifting mosaic of vegetation composition and structure across the landscape. We compared patch burning with traditional homogeneity-based management in tallgrass prairie to determine the influence of the two treatments on the aboveground invertebrate community. Patch burning resulted in a temporal flush of invertebrate biomass in patches transitional between unburned and patches burned in the current year. Total invertebrate mass was about 50% greater in these transitional patches within patch-burned pastures as compared to pastures under traditional, homogeneity-based management. Moreover, the mosaic of patches in patch-burned pastures contained a wider range of invertebrate biomass and greater abundance of some invertebrate orders than did the traditionally managed pastures. Patch burning provides habitat that meets requirements for a broad range of invertebrate species, suggesting the potential for patch burning to benefit other native animal assemblages in the food chain. |
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