Tag Archives: bushfire

Light My Fire: How Birds Respond to Extreme Climate in the Wake of Bushfire

Posted on by One comment

Fire, drought and flooding rains: The effect of climatic extremes on bird species’ responses to time since fire (2021) Connell et al., Diversity and Distributions, https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13287

The Crux

Both bushfires and extreme climate events are capable of shaping not only habitats, but also the number of different species that inhabit them. Yet the interaction between these phenomena can be equally important. For instance, an extreme flood or drought could have a very different impacts on a forest depending on how recently that forest was burned by fire. If a fire tore through recently, an extended period of drought may finish off species already under stress, yet if there has been a longer period of time since the last fire, the ecosystem may be able to tolerate a drought.

Given that climate change is increasing the occurrence of both extreme climate events and bushfires, it’s better to start investigating the effects of these interactions sooner rather than later. This week’s authors looked at the interaction between the two phenomena in south-eastern Australia, an area whose wildlife has come under a lot of pressure recently.

Read more

The Elusive Climax

Posted on by One comment

Image Credit: ForestWander.com CC BY-SA 3.0 US, Image Cropped

Somewhere in my education, I distinctly remember a video that explained ecosystem succession moving towards a climax condition. The film depicted the gradual filling of a lake and subsequent encroachment of saplings as the system aged towards its inevitable end as a hardwood forest in the eastern United States. I remember thinking even then, “but where do lakes come from?” I couldn’t work out how there could be a mosaic of habitats if there was a steady progression towards a single endpoint.

Read more

Forest Parasols and a Thirsty Atmosphere

Posted on by Leave a comment

Have you ever sat down to a cold drink on a hot day and sucked down most of the glass in the first sip? Increasing thirst with increasing temperature also applies to Earth’s atmosphere – as air warms, it can ‘hold’ more water. The difference between the air’s level of moisture and its moisture capacity is dubbed the ‘vapour pressure deficit’ or ‘VPD’, which is essentially a measure of the thirst of the atmosphere.

Read more

Science in Practice: Highlights from the Ecological Society of Australia’s 2019 Annual Meeting

Posted on by Leave a comment

The Cataract Gorge in Launceston, Tasmania, where the 2019 Ecological Society of Australia Annual Meeting was held (Image Credit: Marina Schmoeller, CC BY 2.0)

I just got back from 10 days in Tasmania, Australia. As a temporary visitor in the country, I extended my trip to attend the Ecological Society of Australia’s annual conference (ESAus) as much as I could, so I could explore the surroundings and get to know a little of the place, its people and its unique biodiversity.

The conference was held in Launceston, the second largest city in Tasmania. With about ninety thousand inhabitants, a rich history with deep roots in its eye-catching landscapes, the Tamar River Valley and the Cataract Gorge, Launceston is a charming place with a lot to offer all visitors. But let’s talk about the conference.

Read more

The Amazon is Still Burning: Why Did We Forget It?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Image Credit: Vinícius Mendonça/Ibama, Image Cropped, CC BY-SA 2.0

If you missed the furore about the fate of the Amazon rainforest earlier this year then you clearly do not have social media or a newspaper subscription. For a few weeks it became the call-to-arms for environmentalists everywhere (unless they were busy doing that whole “what about this other catastrophe” thing). And then the posts dried up, and public attention waned. But whilst the fires aren’t as bad now, they’re still burning, and still threatening both the vast numbers of different species and the indigenous groups that call the Amazon their home. So why has it disappeared from the public consciousness?

Read more

Why Australia is Approaching a ‘Climate Change’ Election

Posted on by

Image Credit: Tim J Keegan, CC BY-SA 2.0, Image Cropped

This weekend, Australia will have a federal election. My country will vote, not on an individual leader, but on the party that will form government for the next 3-4 years. We’ve been led by the conservative Liberals (yes, the right-wing party are called the Liberals, it’s stupid) since 2013, and that time in Australia has not been kind to the environment. A tax on carbon was repealed almost as soon as it was implemented, prioritising large businesses has caused potentially irreversible damage to iconic ecosystems around the country, and a disregard for the potential impacts of climate change have been a trademark of the present government.

Read more

The Shifting of Ecological Baselines

Posted on by 2 comments
Bushfires like the ones that have ravaged Australia and California this year could become the new norm for the generation that has been born in the last decade, an example of how our perception of ecological change is defined by what has happened in our lifetime

Bushfires like the ones that have ravaged Australia and California this year, could become the new norm for the generation that has been born in the last decade, an example of how our perception of ecological change is defined by what has happened in our lifetime (Image Credit: dm4244, CC BY-SA 4.0, Image Cropped)

It’s no secret that our world has undergone rapid changes in the last few decades. Extreme weather events are becoming almost the norm and species seem to be going extinct every minute. But as depressing as this may seem, the general doom and gloom we hear about the world on a daily basis still only represents a small percentage of the ills we’ve inflicted on our planet since we’ve been here.

Read more