EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Where There's Smoke ...

Wildfire, Pacific Coast Range, Northern California

Explanation:  Flying over the Pacific Coast Range mountains of northern California in late August of 2014, I was amazed at the extent to which smoke from a series of wildfires had spread into the local valleys, choking out visibility.  It's only gotten worse throughout the Pacific states this summer season, too.

Health hazards of wildfire smoke are very real.  The Center for Disease Control offers a list of good cautions and steps to take to reduce your health risk from wildfire smoke.  

But wildfire smoke can also affect wildlife, too.  Consider that the 1988 conflagration in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem resulted in the decimation of about 1 percent of the elk population -- most because of smoke inhalation.  Smoke can have toxic effects, as well as simply depleting the availability of oxygen, for any terrestrial air-breathing animal.  

Wildlife species react to wildfires in vastly different ways.  Some species detect and respond to the feel of heat, others to the smell of smoke, still others to the sight of flames and billowing smoke, and yet others even to the sounds of the fire, whereas some species seem not to respond at all.  

Red bats (Lasiurus borealis) hibernating in leaf litter are alerted by the combination of the sound of fire and scent of smoke (Scesny and Robbins 2006).  

In Australia, during brush fires, the marsupial known as the long-nosed potoroo (Potorous tridacylus) seeks refuge in burrows dug by other species (Cronin 1991).  More studies are needed to look at the vulnerability of animals that take refuge in tree cavities and other confined nesting and denning sites.  

Many species of insect are attracted to the heat and light of fire (and thus many incinerate themselves!).  Secondarily, many birds are then attracted to the hoards of insects that are attracted to the fire, and the birds follow a fire line feasting on grasshoppers and other insects as they fly and leap for their lives.  
  

        

Information:
     Cronin, L. 1991 (reprinted 1997). Key guide to Australian mammals. Reed Books Australia, Victoria, Australia. 190 pp.
     Engstrom, R.T.  2010.  First-order fire effects on animals: review and recommendations.  Fire Ecology 6(1):doi: 10.4996/fireecology.0601115.
     Scesny, A.A., and L.W. Robbins. 2006. Detection of fire by eastern red bats (Lasiurus borealis): arousal from torpor. Bat Research News 47: 142.