UC Berkeley

Anthropogenic pressures continue to shift the patterning and intensity of ecological disturbances globally. These changes in disturbance dynamics threaten conservation efforts of biodiversity in ecosystems around the world. One of the most conspicuous examples of this are novel, rapid changes in global fire regimes that have increased the frequency and severity of wildfires in fire-prone ecosystems. These megafires have the potential to quickly and dramatically change entire landscapes in ways that may impact the natural resilience of ecosystems and their wildlife communities. In this dissertation, I explore the potential mechanisms in which ecological resilience to severe fire may be facilitated and potentially enhanced in Californian wildlife communities, predominantly in oak woodland savannas.

This work addresses the interaction between principles of resilience and fire disturbance at multiple ecological scales. In Chapter 1, I present an overview of the ways wildfire in California spatially overlaps areas of conservation priority as well as broad categories of land cover types. In Chapters 2-4, I then zoom into a specific case study to address how a specific megafire, the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire, impacts the resilience of wildlife communities (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4) and the adaptive capacity and behaviors of an ecologically dominant ungulate species (Chapter 3). Specifically, in Chapter 2, I examine the impacts of this fire on the recovery and response of mammal species using an array of trail cameras before, during, and after this fire event. In Chapter 3, I focus on the specific behavioral responses of a single species (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) to this wildfire event and discuss how these behaviors may influence interspecies interactions at broader ecological scales. Finally, in Chapter 4 I examine the impacts of this wildfire event on broad patterns of species diversity and community assemblages across bird and bat communities using a set of acoustic monitors. Understanding how these qualities of resilience are realized, and potentially enhanced by human action, will become increasingly critical as fire regimes across the state, and globally, continue to change in response to anthropogenic pressures.