Authors
Adrià López-Baucells, Carles Flaquer, Maria Mas, Pere Pons, Xavier Puig-Montserrat
Publication date
2021/2
Journal
Biodiversity and Conservation
Volume
30
Issue
2
Pages
385-402
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Description
The pyrodiversity begets biodiversity hypothesis suggests that wildfires drive habitat diversification, allowing species with different niches to coexist and increasing biodiversity. However, despite numerous wildfires studies, limited research has addressed species-specific effects of fire recurrence. We radio-tracked grey long-eared bats (Plecotus austriacus) from the largest maternity roost (a historical monastery) in an area of the Mediterranean coastal belt with one of the highest fire recurrence rates. Although shrublands cover over 80% of the surroundings and P. austriacus is known to forage in a wide range of habitats, the tracked bats barely used this habitat. They spent 92% of their flight time in scattered small Aleppo pine forest fragments, and never visited any habitat patches that burnt more than three times in the last 30 years. We also report some of the longest foraging and commuting distances (9.95 …
Total citations
20212022202320244642
Scholar articles
A López-Baucells, C Flaquer, M Mas, P Pons… - Biodiversity and Conservation, 2021