Wildfire Management Tactics Lead to Higher Flower and Bee Populations

By: Antonella Punzinao

 

Why Should I Care?

With our world’s changing climate, many natural environmental events are increasing in frequency and gaining in strength. Wildfires are among these events that have recently caused much chaos around the world. Wildfires are non-manmade burns that need human help to be contained and put out. Despite all the harmful outcomes of wildfires, if effectively managed and treated afterward, they have some pretty amazing effects on the ecosystem in which they once consumed.

 

Background

Areas prone to wildfires are dry and get little rainfall. The vegetation is very flammable and usually has been affected by humans. The areas after a wildfire, however, are very fertile and cause vegetation to grow back better. In a recent 2018 peer-reviewed study conducted by researchers from Montana State University’s ecology, conservation biology, and environmental science departments, the researchers focused on calculating more specific outcomes wildfires are capable of. It is well known that wild bee species are endangered and need human help to revive them. Taking this information the researchers investigated how a process called ‘post-burn logging’, where burned trees (timber) are cut down after a wildfire leaving the area bare and more fertile, can help bump up the bee populations in the study area. Wildflowers are also considered in this study because they are the primary food source for pollinators. Pollinators will now be referred to as bees since they were the main species collected in the study. There has not been much prior research done on the direct effects of post-burn logging or its effects on pollinator populations, so this study is one of the first of its kind.

 

Methods

            Two researchers, Laura Burkle and Laura Heil conducted the research and study that this article entails. This study took place over the course of two years located in the Gallatin National Forest in Montana. The researchers chose two different areas within the forest that had been affected by similar severity wildfires. The areas had the same vegetation coverage, composed mostly of Pseudotsuga menziesii(Douglas Fir), Pinus contorta(Lodgepole Pine), Picea engelmannii(Engelmann Spruce), and Abies lasiocarpa(Subalpine Fir). All of these are the main evergreen trees in the area that dominate the forest cover and are the trees involved in the post-burn logging efforts. The two areas of interest are an older site, Thompson Creek (6,979 acres) burned in 1991 and a younger site Wicked Creek (22,159 acres) burned in 2007. Each of these burn areas has two 15-hectare areas, one was cut using post-burn logging, and the other was not cut.

 

The researchers collected data from June 1st to August 21st, the growing seasons for this area over the course of two seasons/years. Once a week for 3.7 hours a day the researchers randomly chose a section of each location and area to collect pollinator samples and to count flowering plants that were in bloom (active with a showing flower). Data were collected on warm, sunny, and calm days to ensure no odd variables. Pollinators were collected by using a hand net, much like a butterfly net, and then put into a vile then placed onto ice to be humanely euthanized. The pollinator individuals were taken back to the lab to be studied. The flowering ground plants that were in bloom were tallied by species type and the data were also taken back to the lab to be compared with the various pollinator species collected at each site and area.

 

Results

            Burkle and Heil’s study confirms that post-burn logging has a positive effect on the populations of pollinators and wildflowers. In the areas of the older site, Thompson Creek, that took longer to get logged after its burn, the abundance and density(alpha-diversity) of the flower species populations turned out to be 28% lower than the area of Wicked Creek where the logging was completed soon after the burn was completed. In the area of the younger fire site, the alpha diversity of the pollinators was up 39% more than the rates at Thompson Creek. In Wicked Creek the differences in the logged and unlogged areas differed by about 23% where diversity was more abundant in the logged area.  

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Applications

            From Burkle and Heil’s study, we can conclude that using various management practices when it comes to wildfire burns can help bring the area to prosper after such a detrimental unexpected event. Diving into an area that wasn’t looked much into, the researchers of this study found amazing data that can now be used to conduct more studies regarding how post-burn logging can have a positive impact on species both plant and animal. Now knowing that this method of logging does in fact raise bee populations and promote flower growth, this can be kept in mind as a management tactic for bees. Being able to turn something like a wildfire into amazing new scientific research that promotes the study of Earth’s changing environment while also getting the public invested by calling on bees is such a great scientific feat.