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To evaluate the occurrence of open-habitat and steppe-land bird species in Western Mediterranean burned areas and to assess the role of the extent and location of the fire on species richness and composition. At the species level, the relationship was explored between habitat breadth, distribution extent and the ability to occupy recently burned areas. Location: Iberia and Southern France Methods: Fieldwork and bibliography were assembled to obtain breeding bird inventories for 21 burned areas, mostly large wildfires (135- 23,800 ha). The sampling effort was standardized in relation to the area in the 11 fire locations surveyed using transects. Results: Single burned areas contained 0 to 15 open-habitat species (mean = 7.6), and in all the areas combined there were 22 species, including 17 with an unfavourable conservation status in Europe. The most frequent were Carduelis cannabina, Lullula arborea, Alectoris rufa, Oenanthe hispanica and Emberiza cia, but characteristic steppe-land birds such as O. leucura, Calandrella brachydactyla and C. rufescens also bred in particular burned areas. After controlling for the extent of the species range in the Spanish distribution Atlas, passerine occurrence in burned areas was positively related to the species’ habitat breadth in a gradient of unburned habitats. Cluster analysis separated a species-poor group of fire locations from a species-rich group, and showed that some neighbouring areas had a similar species composition. However, there was no spatial autocorrelation between burned areas, and species composition was correlated with the fire extent (Mantel test). Species richness tended to increase with increasing fire area. From the regression equation 5, 9, 12-13 and 16-17 open-habitat species may be expected to occur in burned areas of 100, 1000, 10,000 and 100,000 ha, respectively. Conclusions: This study stresses the importance of biogeographical constraints on colonisation of new habitat patches created by disturbances. The extent of the fire rather than the proximity between burned areas influenced species richness and composition of open-habitat birds in recently burned areas. The best post-fire colonisers were generalists regarding habitat structure. The role of large wildfires in the conservation of threatened open-habitat birds seems to be significant and merits further study

Ħafna mill-ispeċi ta' l-agħsafar tista' tarafhom mill-kulur. Oħrajn tarafhom mill­għamla u d-daqs tagħhom, filwaqt li hemm oħrajn li tkun tista' tiddeċiedi x' inhuma mill-għajta jew l-għanja tagħhom kif ukoll mill-imġieba. lz-Zakak huwa wieħed minn dawk L-agħsafar li tista' tgħid tagħrafhom mall-ewwel għax l-għamla,l-għajta, il­ kulur u l-imġieba huma differenti minn dawk t'għasfur ieħor., N/A

Wildfires play a determining role in the composition and structure of many plant and animal communities. On the other hand, climate change is considered to be a major driver of current and future fire regime changes. Despite increases in drought in many areas of the world, the effects of aridity on post-fire colonization by animals have been rarely addressed. This study aims to analyse how a regional aridity gradient affects post-fire recovery of vegetation, bird species richness and the numbers of four early to middle-successional warbler species associated with the shrub cover. The database contains bird relative abundance and environmental variables from 3072 censuses in 695 transects located in 70 recently burnt areas (1 to 11 years after wildfire) in Catalonia (Spain), which were sampled between 2006 and 2013. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) showed that plant cover was affected by time since fire, aridity and forest management. However, only the highest vegetation height layer (>100 cm) recovered slower in arid areas after fire. Time since fire positively influenced bird species richness and the relative abundance of the four focal species. The post-fire recovery of Melodious (Hippolais polyglotta) and Subalpine warblers (Sylvia cantillans) was hampered by aridity. Although this was not demonstrated for Dartford (S. undata) and Sardinian warblers (S. melanocephala), their occurrence was low in the driest areas during the first three years after fire. Overall, this study suggests that future increases in aridity can affect plant regeneration after fire and slow down the recovery of animal populations that depend on understorey and shrublands. Given the recently highlighted increases in aridity and fire frequency in Mediterranean-climate regions, improved knowledge on how aridity affects ecological succession is especially necessary. This study was funded by project CGL2014-54094-R, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (http://www.mineco.gob.es/portal/site/mineco/idi).