BDBSA Project Metadata Detail

Survey/Project Number: 1099          Total No. of Sites: 0
Survey/Project Name: Fire Ecology Post Wildfire
Abstract: This project aims to follow changes in the vegetation and the small terrestrial vertebrate-fauna at a series of permanently marked sites sampling the major vegetation communities across South Australia in Cleland, Eurilla and Horsnell Gully Conservation Parks; Kyeema Conservation Park and Mount Remarkable National Park. A series of vegetation and vertebrate monitoring sites were established in Cleland, Horsnell Gully and Eurilla Conservation Parks in the mid-1970s as part of baseline data collection prior to writing Management Plans for these parks. As part of Cleland park management operations to provide some fire protection for the houses adjacent to the park boundary to the north of Yanagin Road, a fuel reduction burn was carried out on 28 October 1976. To monitor the effect of this burn on vegetation three photopoints were established pre-fire in addition to those vegetation and vertebrate sites already present In 1977 biologists with the then Woods and Forests Department and National Parks and Wildlife Service of South Australia established an area in which to carry out a series of long-term studies of the effects of fire on plant and animal communities. The experimental area was in a remnant area of natural vegetation on forestry land on the northern boundary of Kyeema CP. The adjacent area of the conservation park was to act as an unburnt control. Trapping grids covering both the burn and the unburnt control were established to measure the effect of the two fuel reduction fires on the reptile and frog fauna and on the vegetation associated with the trapping grid. Horsnell Gully CP was burnt in a wildfire on 14 May 1980. All four parks were burnt by the extremely-hot Ash Wednesday wildfire on 16 February 1983. Having the pre-fire data from these parks, albeit with complex histories of much-less intense fires, provided an opportunity to compare recovery of vegetation, and at some sites, the vertebrates, from the Ash Wednesday fire, and compare the results with some limited pre-fire data from the same sites. Sampling procedures were standardised for all these photopoints and their associated vegetation quadrats.
 
Start Date: 01/01/1978      End Date: 31/12/1998
Survey Type: Vegetation and Fauna
   
Study Area Description: Kyeema C.P., Mount Remarkable N.P., Cleland C.P., Horsnell Gully C.P.
Objectives
         Vegetation: Refer to Abstract.
         Fauna: Refer to Abstract.
Methodology
         Vegetation: Sampling procedures were standardised for all these photopoints and their associated vegetation quadrats The Cleland CP sites were re-sampled at approximately three monthly intervals over four years on 28 Oct 1976, 22 Mar 1977, 25 Jul 1977, 20 Oct 1977, 9 Feb 1978, and then annually on 10 Jan 1979, 15 Mar 1979, and 29 Oct 1980, when the monitoring was terminated. The Horsnell Gully CP sites were sampled annually thirteen times over 18 years following the April 1980 wildfire on: 14 May 1980, 14 Nov 1981, 21 Dec 1982, 24 Nov 1983, 9 Nov 1984, 4 Dec 1985, 26 Nov 1986, 24 Nov 1987, 6 Dec 1988, 28 Nov 1989, 16 Dec 1990, 9 Dec 1991 and then finally in 5 Dec 1998. The Eurilla CP sites were then sampled ten times over 15 years following the fire on 11 Mar 1983, 16 Nov 1983, 15 Nov 1984, 4 Dec 1985, 19 Dec 1986, 19 Nov 1987, 17 Nov 1988, 23 Nov 1989, 12 Dec 1990, 11 Dec, 1991 and a final sampling on 14 Dec 1998 The Kyeema CP reptile trapping grid was sampled much more frequently that the other Mt Lofty Ranges fire study sites with monthly trapping through summer in the first few years following the Ash Wednesday fire. The vegetation sites were only sampled following the Fuel Reduction Burn on 16 Sept 1981, 21 Sept 1981, 7 Mar 1983 and 27 May 1985 and following the Ash Wednesday Wildfire on 7 Mar 1983 and 27 May 1985 Seventeen vegetation only sites were established in Mt Remarkable National Park following a wildfire in March 1988. These sites had a single pre-fire data set collected by NPWS field staff in Dec 1986. After the wildfire they were sampled in Mar 1988, Dec 1988 and Jan 1993. The standard vegetation monitoring sites in all these parks consisted of two steel droppers (camera post and sighting post) set 10 m apart and 1.5 m tall. Photographs are taken with a camera fitted with a 55 mm lens resting on the camera post with the field of view centred on the top of the sighting post. Photopoints were coded with the number of the NPWSA reserve (ie:- C13 for Cleland Conservation Park) and a sequential number series. Ten 1m square quadrats were laid out within the field of the photograph, and all plants rooted in or overhanging were scored for species, number of individuals and projective canopy cover. A subsequent operation calculated an `Importance Value' for each species within the combined 10 quadrats at each site.
         Fauna: Where vertebrates were also sampled we used a series of 5 permanent pitfall traps spaced at 10m intervals, consisting of a PVC storm water pipe 24cm diameter and 29cm deep with a metal flywire base. When not in use they were sealed with a flat galvanised iron lid sealed with a piece of 5mm foam rubber to stop small animals entering. When opened a drift fence of metal flywire 25mm high linked the pitfall traps. Associated with these was an additional trap line of 25 Elliott traps with a wire cage trap at the beginning and end. These trap lines were opened for three nights annually in late spring.

Data Distribution Rules: Public Dataset
Project Basis: Vegetation : Natural Hazard /Ecological studies - flood and bushfire mapping and fire behaviour assessment. - Standard Survey methodology used.
Vegetation : Monitoring - Vegetation/Ecosystem (ie species records - usually re-visited for ongoing monitoring) NOTE:NON Std Svy methodology may have been used.
Information Authority: Department for Environment and Heritage - Biological Survey and Monitoring