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Aim: Many species are adapted to a particular fire regime and major deviations from that regime may lead to localized extinction. Here, we quantify immaturity risks to an obligate‐seeder forest tree using an objectively designed climate model ensemble and a probabilistic fire regime simulator to predict future fire regimes. Location: Alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) distribution, Victoria, south‐eastern Australia. Methods: We used a fire regime model (FROST) with six climate projections from a climate model ensemble across 3.7 million hectares of native forest and non‐native vegetation to examine immaturity risks to obligate‐seeder forests dominated by alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis), which has a primary juvenile period of approximately 20 years. Our models incorporated current and future projected climate including fuel feedbacks to simulate fire regimes over 100 years. We then used Random Forest modelling to evaluate which spatial characteristics of the landscape were associated with high immaturity risks to alpine ash forest patches. Results: Significant shifts to the fire regime were predicted under all six future climate projections. Increases in both wildfire extent (total area burnt, area burnt at high intensity) and frequency were predicted with an average increase of up to 110 hectares burnt annually by short‐interval fires (i.e., within the expected minimum time to reproductive maturity). The immaturity risk posed by short‐interval fires to alpine ash forest patches was well explained by Random Forest models and varied with both location and environmental variables. Main conclusions: Alpine ash forests are predicted to be burned at greater intensities and shorter intervals under future fire regimes. About 67% of the current alpine ash distribution was predicted to be at some level of immaturity risk over the 100‐year modelling period, with the greatest risks to those patches located on the periphery of the current distribution, closer to roads or surrounded by a drier landscape at lower elevations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity and Distributions, 28 (3), 404 - 416. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13283 30 Harris, R. M., Beaumont, L. J., Vance, T. R., Tozer, C. R., Remenyi, T. A., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S. E., Mitchell, P. J., Nicotra, A. B., McGregor, S., Andrew, N. R., Letnic, M., Kearney, M. R., Wernberg, T., Hutley, L. B., Chambers, L. E., Fletcher, M.-S., Keatley, M. R., Woodward, C. A., Williamson, G., ... Bowman, D. M. J. S. (2018). BIO SKETCH The authors of this manuscript acted as guest editors for the "Fire ecology for the 21st century: conserving biodiversity in the age of megafire" Special Issue and encompass expertise in fire ecology and behaviour from a range of ecosystems across the globe. Recent megafires have alarmed conservation scientists and practitioners because their scale and intensity demands new ways of thinking about biodiversity conservation in fire-prone landscapes, and, potentially, new tools tailored to avoid or minimise fire-induced declines and extinctions (Wintle et al., 2020). 67 Ward, M., Tulloch, A. I., Radford, J. Q., Williams, B. A., Reside, A. E., Macdonald, S. L., Mayfield, H. J., Maron, M., Possingham, H. P., Vine, S. J., O'Connor, J. L., Massingham, E. J., Greenville, A. C., Woinarski, J. C. Z., Garnett, S. T., Lintermans, M., Scheele, B. C., Carwardine, J., Nimmo, D. G., Lindenmayer, D. B., Kooyman, R. M., Simmonds, J. S., Sonter, L. J., & Watson, J. E. M. (2020). [Extracted from the article]

Aim: Wildfires increasingly create large high‐severity patches with interior areas far from less disturbed habitats. We evaluated how these trends impact bird communities by investigating the effect of internal distance from lower‐severity areas, high‐severity patch size, and years since fire on avian alpha and beta diversity. Location: Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Methods: Bird occurrence data were collected during 2009–2017 within high‐severity patches of 27 wildfires representing 1–30 years since disturbance. A two‐step multispecies occupancy method was used to account for imperfect detection of 94 species and estimate effects of patch characteristics on community richness and dissimilarity. Results: Community richness decreased with distance from patch edge and with patch size. Richness increased with years since fire, but this pattern was dependent on distance from edge with higher peak richness (23 species) near edges than interiors (18 species). Community dissimilarity was not associated with distance, indicating that large high‐severity patch interiors contain subsets of, rather than complements to, edge communities. Dissimilarity peaked later with increasing patch size. Guild richness of tree and primary cavity nesters was negatively associated with distance and patch size. Richness of ground and shrub nesters was insensitive to distance, while shrub nester richness increased somewhat with patch size. Due to declines among other species, ground and shrub nesters made up a greater percentage of the avian community within the interiors of large high‐severity patches. Main conclusions: As fire activity increases due to accumulating forest fuels and accelerating climate change, high‐severity patches and their resulting early‐seral habitats are becoming more extensive with less edge and more interior area. Such changes are likely to decrease avian diversity locally and shift community composition away from forest‐associated species. Management actions that promote the full range of fire effects but limit high‐severity patch size may best conserve bird diversity within fire‐adapted ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]