EFFECTS OF FIRE AND DISTURBANCE ON PLANTS AND BIRDS IN A FLORIDA OAK PALMETTO SCRUB COMMUNITY

Prescribed fire altered avian community composition for at least 6 months in areas where nearly all the vegetation burned. Twenty years after clearing of an area of oak/palmetto scrub, the regenerated oak-scrub habitat differed from adjacent oak/palmetto scrub in having more bare ground (15.5 vs. 0.8%), a taller shrub layer (272 vs. 161 cm) composed primarily of oak species without saw palmetto Serenoa repens and more herbaceous species (11 vs. 3). Compared with oak-palmetto scrub, disturbed oak scrub had more breeding bird species that were abundant enough to allow density estimation (8 vs. 4) and supported a higher density of Florida scrub jay Aphelocoma coerulescens coerulescens, a threatened subspecies. Because effects of mechanical disturbance last for very long periods, the use of mechanical disturbance as a habitat management tool should be applied cautiously. -from Authors