Effects of fire management practices on butterfly diversity in the forested western United States

In response to a policy of fire suppression since early in the 20th century, forest managers have recently initiated emergency programs of prescribed burning to reduce readily combustible fuel loads in many forests of the western United States. The effects of burning on woody plant composition and structure are relatively well understood; however, little is known about the impact of burning on other taxa. I tested the response of butterflies to fire reintroduction in the Rogue River National Forest and Yosemite National Park. I established replicated transects on three different types of prescribed burn treatment (forest burns, fuel breaks, and riparian burns), as well as control sites, to monitor adult butterfly richness and diversity. Two to three times as many butterfly species occur in forest burns as controls, 13 times as many in fuel breaks as controls, and twice as many in riparian burns as controls. The results of this study suggest that the reintroduction of diverse fire management methods, especially riparian burning, will benefit butterfly diversity in coniferous forests. Further study is required to examine potential proscriptions against riparian burning, including erosion and invasive species encroachment. Both area and density of gaps in the forest canopy were found to explain large amounts of the variation in butterfly richness (R-2 =0.64 and R-2=0.80, respectively). This study demonstrates that using non-traditional taxa (e.g., butterflies instead of trees) to study ecosystem processes may help to provide valuable insights into alternative management strategies. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.