Woodpecker helps managers promote new life in burned forests:
"Gigantic, severe fires are becoming the new norm in California due to drought, longer burn seasons and dense forests. But birds do really well in landscapes that are 'pyrodiverse' – areas where fire results in uneven patches burned at high, medium, and low severity," Stillman said.
Black-backed woodpeckers love pyrodiversity. They prefer to build their nest cavities in newly burned areas after high severity fires. But they also like to be adjacent to areas that burned at low intensity, where their young can hide from predators among living trees that still provide cover. Because of the species' unique habitat associations, they are sensitive to the removal of trees after fire, and forest managers use information on the woodpecker to guide their post-fire planning.
After a wildfire, forest managers face difficult decisions about how best to protect and restore the burned areas while balancing the needs of people and wildlife. Sometimes there isn't time to survey wildlife in burned areas, making it hard to choose where to invest in wildlife conservation. To address this need, the researchers developed an online tool to predict the potential abundance of black-backed woodpeckers after fire. Incorporating new information on the value of pyrodiversity made the underlying models more accurate.
"The tool we've created uses data from 11 years of surveys to predict where woodpeckers could be found in the greatest numbers using data available within months after a fire burns," Stillman said. "The birds move in to take advantage of a boom in juicy beetle larvae in the burned trees."
[...] "A burned forest is a unique, incredible and complicated ecosystem that bursts with new life," Stillman said. "At first you think everything is dead. The ground is ash. The trees are black. But as you start walking around, you find that the place is alive. It's not dead, just changed."
Journal Reference:
Andrew N. Stillman, Robert L. Wilkerson, Danielle R. Kaschube, et al., Incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for rapid post-fire management: A woodpecker case study, Ecol. App., 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2853
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 05, @04:10PM (4 children)
We only have a bit over an acre of land around our home, perhaps 20 large oaks and a couple of other large tree species. A couple of oaks have died in the 10 years that we've been here, along with a dogwood - and several others have been rather severely damaged by hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.
We leave our dead and damaged trees standing - although the massively lightning damaged one we did "top" for our safety, but the 30ish foot tall damaged trees remain, and they are tremendous bird habitat. Woodpeckers first, we have 6 species including the large pileated, they have carved out several nest cavities and raised their young on our humble single acre. They seem to prefer the hurricane "topped" oaks which remain green on the bottom but have readily "peckable" wood up top for their cavities. Other species will often move into a woodpecker cavity when the woodpeckers move on - including our barred owls and red shouldered hawks. Then there are tons of wrens, cardinals, bluebirds, finches, titmice, jays, crows, ibis, and on and on - my wife has identified 100 species in our yard with the Merlin app. https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ [allaboutbirds.org]
We had to call eight local tree services for quotation to get our lightning damaged tree topped without completely taking it out. Most of them refused to bid the job without total removal including stump grinding. Finally we got one who, not only would do what we wanted, but did it for $800 instead of the minimum $2300 up to $6000 that we were quoted by the other companies. I would guess that we represent 1 / 100 landowners in our respect of dead and damaged trees around here, most will simply immediately order total removal of any tree which they find "unsightly" or otherwise less than their idea of a perfect tree.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 05, @05:50PM (3 children)
My guess would be liability worries when the tree finally dies.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 05, @06:53PM (2 children)
My guess would be: We don't show up with the bucket truck unless we get paid X thousand dollars. We don't mind earning that money, and stump grinding is one way to do that, but the minimum safe crew of seven guys and the big equipment cost Y thousand dollars per day to operate / work.
The crew that finally did the work for us was still seven guys, but they used simple climbing harnesses and ropes and not much in the way of trucks.
I think the real liability worries are for injuries to the crew which is why most of them send in so much heavy equipment: to avoid insurance company perception that their guys are working in riskier than necessary conditions.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 05, @09:56PM (1 child)
That's a good point also... I had a ten inch spruce removed last year and the crew did it in... probably less than an hour, so if I hired everyone but the "stump guy" they'd have to pay the 'stump guy' for a day's work anyway, more or less, its not like they can send him home for a half hour.
Another thought I had was the crew I hired charged a pretty substantial discount for "just show up whenever" so there was no truck fee etc and if they're just a gang of dudes wandering around chopping up trees its enough of a headache to "only chop down the ones with hunter orange spray paint" they don't seem like the most detail oriented people I ever met. So if they accepted special orders it could get weird.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 05, @10:20PM
One thing I noticed about our crew we eventually hired: they really do love the work, they're into the danger, they're into the heavy lifting, they just love doing it. As they would have to for how little they are apparently paid...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday June 05, @09:58PM (1 child)
Now is the proper term pyrodiverse or transcarbonized or something something mostly peaceful protest? I just want all my alphabet points today.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 05, @10:22PM
Pyrodiversity is in the Biodiversity realm.
How and where the woodpeckers swing their peckers doesn't really enter into the terminology.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/