Bird response to fire severity and repeated burning in upland hardwood forest

Prescribed burning is a common management tool for upland hardwood forests, with wildlife habitat improvement an often cited goal. Fire management for wildlife conservation requires understanding how species respond to burning at different frequencies, severities, and over time. In an earlier study, we experimentally assessed how breeding bird communities and species responded to fuel reduction treatments by mechanical understory reduction, low-severity prescribed fires, or mechanical understory reduction followed a year later by high-severity prescribed fires in upland hardwood forest. Here, we assess longer-term response to the initial mechanical treatment (M), and a second low-intensity burn in twice burned (B2) and mechanical + twice burned (MB2) treatments and controls (C). Initial (2003) higher dead fuel loadings and consequently high-severity fires in MB2 created open-canopy structure with abundant snags, resulting in much higher species richness and density of breeding birds compared to other treatments. Relative bird density and richness remained much higher in MB2 after a second burn, but few changes were evident that were not already apparent after one burn. The initial (2003) burn in B2 had cooler, low-severity fires that killed few trees. Delayed tree mortality occurred in both burn treatments after one burn, and continued in both after a second low-intensity burn. In B2, this resulted in gradual development of a “perforated,” patchy canopy structure with more snags. Abundance of total birds and most species in B2 was similar to C, but several additional species associated with open-forest conditions occurred at low levels, increasing richness in B2. In both burn treatments, burning temporarily reduced habitat suitability for ground-nesting birds. Bird communities in M were similar to C, as shrubs recovered rapidly. Results indicate that one or two relatively low-intensity burns with patches of hotter fire may result in gradual, subtle changes to canopy cover and structure that may slightly increase bird species richness over time. In contrast, a single high-intensity, high severity fire can create young forest conditions and a heterogeneous canopy structure that can be maintained by repeated burning and increase breeding bird relative abundance and richness by attracting disturbance-adapted species while retaining most other forest species.