An overview of the Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project

Fire is a widespread natural disturbance and an important ecological process in mallee ecosystems. Understanding the effects of fire on plants and animals presents a key challenge for the conservation and management of biodiversity in the Mallee. Commencing in 2006, the Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project was developed to investigate the effects of fire on a range of taxa (plants, invertebrates, reptiles, birds and mammals). This project represents one of the largest ecological studies of fire ever undertaken in Australia. The project has had a particular focus on investigating the influence of the properties of ‘fire mosaics’ on biota. To do this, we employed a novel ‘whole of landscape’ design, in which we sampled the flora and fauna in 28 landscapes (each 4 km in diameter, 12.5km) across a 104,000 km area of the Murray Mallee region of Victoria, SA and NSW. Here, we present a summary of some key results and outputs from this project. These include: detailed maps of a) fire history (from 1972 – 2007), and b) major vegetation types; a method for predicting the age of mallee vegetation beyond that which can be accomplished using satellite images; novel information about the distribution of fire age-classes in the region; and changes to vegetation structure and the occurrence of reptile, bird and mammal species over a century long post-fire time-frame. We also present results on the effects that landscape properties of fire mosaics (extent of particular age classes and the diversity of fire age classes) have on the diversity of fauna in different landscapes. A wealth of knowledge has been developed through the Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project that will assist in management of mallee ecosystems in southern Australia, and contribute to the conservation of threatened mallee species such as Malleefowl Leipoa ocellata.