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The Resilience of the Rare Hickman's Allanaspides to Fire

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The Resilience of the Rare Hickman's Allanaspides to Fire The resilience of the rare Hickman’s Allanaspides to fire Michael Driessen Natural Values Conservation Branch Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment May 2018 Nature Conservation Report 18/1 Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment The resilience of the rare Hickman’s Allanaspides to fire ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks are due to the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, in particular the fire management crew for conducting the planned burns under difficult constraints. Thanks are also due to Jon Marsden- Smedley for recording details of the burns and for providing advice on fire history, and the following people who assisted with field surveys: Stephen Mallick, Niall Doran, Peter Brown, Fiona Hume, Kevin Bonham, Mick Ilowski, Micah Visoiu, Rachael Alderman and Sam Driessen. Thanks to Jayne Balmer for preparing Fig. 1. The study was funded by the Tasmanian and Australian governments through the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area fauna program. Copyright 2018 Crown in right of State of Tasmania Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any means without permission from the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Nature Conservation Report 18/1 ISSN: (electronic): 1838-7403 Published by: Biodiversity Monitoring Section, Natural Values Conservation Branch, Natural and Cultural Heritage Division, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE), GPO Box 44 Hobart, Tasmania, 7001. Suggested citation: Driessen, M. M. (2018) The resilience of the rare Hickman’s Allanaspides to fire Nature Conservation Report 18/1 Natural and Cultural Heritage Division, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Hobart Cover photo: Allanaspides hickmani. Summary Hickman’s Allanaspides (Allanaspides hickmani) is a rare, primitive, shrimp-like crustacean recognised as having world heritage value. It is restricted to a single catchment in the island State of Tasmania, Australia where it occurs within moorland pools typically containing crayfish (Parastacidae) burrows. Although its moorland habitat has a long history of firing, adverse fire regimes have been identified as a potential threat to the species. A large part of its range is subject to planned burning to help manage the detrimental effects of high intensity wildfires. Here the resilience of A. hickmani to low–moderate intensity fires is investigated over 13 years using a before –after-control-impact design. The original experimental design was modified due to the impacts of an escaped moderate-intensity planned fire. The fires resulted in a reduction in vegetation cover and surface water and an increase in water temperature. Numbers of A. hickmani live-caught in traps decreased immediately following the escaped spring fire and remained low for two years and then recovered to pre-fire/control levels. It is not known whether the reduced catch was due to a reduction in the number of A. hickmani or their movement from pools into crayfish burrows. There was no effect of fire on A. hickmani captures four months after the initial small-scale experimental autumn burns. These findings together with evidence of past high-intensity fires within their area of occupancy suggests that A. hickmani and its habitat are resilient to fire provided the fire regime does not degrade or lead to a complete loss of peat. However, climate change predictions for warmer and drier summers in western Tasmania will increase the risk of peat loss and consequent potential impacts on A. hickmani. 1 INTRODUCTION Hickman’s Allanaspides (Allanaspides hickmani Swain, Wilson and Ong 1971) is a small (12 mm) shrimp-like crustacean that lives in pools and crayfish (Parastacidae) burrows in buttongrass moorlands of southwest Tasmania, Australia. It’s distribution is restricted to a single catchment where it occurs in a very small number (<10) of highly fragmented subpopulations on the margins of Lake Gordon and Lake Pedder (Driessen et al. 2014). A large proportion of its original range was lost as a result of inundation for hydroelectric power generation (Driessen et al. 2006). Allanaspides hickmani is listed as Rare on the schedules of the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 and vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. A sister species, the Marsh Allanaspides (Allanaspides helonomus Swain, Wilson, Hickman & Ong, 1970), has a larger range and area of occupancy spanning three separate catchments which overlaps part of the range of A. hickmani (Driessen et al. 2014). Both Allanaspides spp. together with other extant representatives of the Anaspididae are all restricted to Tasmania, bear a close resemblance to the fossil syncarids, regarded as “living fossils” (Dawson 2003; Schram and Hessler 1984), and contribute to the world heritage values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (Mallick and Driessen 2005). Fire has been identified as a potential threat to A. hickmani, in particular very hot or excessively frequent firing of moorland has the potential to damage or remove the underlying peat (Horwitz 1990). Buttongrass moorland is a very flammable vegetation type that was burnt by hunter-gathers over thousands of years to facilitate easy passage and to encourage game (Thomas 1993). The current extent of buttongrass moorland appears to represent an anthropogenic disclimax extended far beyond its natural edaphic limits by fire (Jackson 1968). Since the cessation of indigenous burning practices in western Tasmania following the arrival of Europeans, the fire regime has been one with long periods without fire, resulting in vegetation growth and fuel build up followed by large conflagrations. To reduce the threat of large hot fires, Marsden-Smedley and Kirkpatrick (2000) proposed a program of broad-scale ecosystem management burning on about 20 year rotation in association with tactical hazard reduction burning on a 5–8 year rotation. They argue that this fire regime (using planned low-intensity burns) would resemble putative Indigenous fire regimes. One of the areas identified as being important to managing wildfire in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is McPartlan Pass, an area of moorland and scrub that lies between Lakes Pedder and Lake Gordon. Reducing fuel loads in this area would restrict the passage of large fires travelling west to east and the threat of high intensity fires in this area. McPartlan Pass comprises over 40% of A. hickmani habitat (Driessen et al. 2014). Fire is an important ecological process shaping landscapes and their biota in many terrestrial ecosystems around the world and is widely used for ecosystem management. While some ecosystems are particularly sensitive to the impacts of fire (e.g. coniferous forests in Tasmania), it is increasingly apparent that fire suppression or exclusion in many ecosystems causes significant change in vegetation structure and composition and can result in the local loss of some plant and animal species. Better knowledge of the responses of plants and animals to the different components of a fire regime (e.g. fire interval, fire season and fire intensity) is required for fire management planning. Invertebrate responses to fire tend to be variable, difficult to detect and with few consistent patterns owing to variation in level of identification, sampling methods, experimental designs and fire regimes (Whelan et al. 2002). One generally consistent fire response is that the composition of invertebrate assemblages changes immediately after fire with most taxa decreasing markedly in abundance in association with post-fire changes in vegetation and other environmental elements (Driessen and Kirkpatrick 2017). Long-term studies have shown that, as these elements recover to pre-fire conditions, the invertebrate assemblages often return to pre-fire levels of diversity and abundance, particularly in fire-prone ecosystems (e.g. Bess et al. 2002; Driessen and Kirkpatrick 2017; Friend and Williams 1996; Pryke and Samways 2012). Most fire research has focused on terrestrial ecosystems 2 but aquatic ecosystems are also affected by fire. Fire can cause immediate effects on aquatic assemblages through mortality from heating of water, exposure to smoke or toxins, changes in water chemistry, and replacement or loss of food sources with deposition of ash and charcoal; later disturbances include increased flooding and sedimentation (New 2014). Here, the response of A. hickmani to low–moderate-intensity planned and unplanned burns is investigated. Because buttongrass moorland has been burnt repeatedly over a long time period and fire is required to maintain this vegetation throughout much of its range, it is expected that A. hickmani populations will be resilient to fires of low–moderate intensity (i.e. able to return to the pre- fire state). METHODS Study area This study was conducted in moorland near Lake Pedder (42°57’S, 146°11’E), Tasmania, Australia at an altitude of 320 m above sea level (Fig. 1). Mean annual rainfall is 1951 mm, with rainfall highest in June–August and lowest in January–March. Mean minimum/maximum monthly temperatures range from 3.2/6.2°C in July to 9.2/20°C in February. Moorlands at the lowland location were dominated by sedges, primarily Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus, Lepidosperma filiforme Labill. Labillardière (Cyperaceae) Sporadanthus tasmanica (Hook. f.) B.G.Briggs & L.A.S.Johnson, Empodisma minus (Hook. f.) L.A.S.Johnson
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