DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1jc66q0
title: Data from: Divergent fire management leads to multiple beneficial outcomes for butterfly conservation in a production mosaic

description: 1. Fire is an intrinsic component of many natural ecosystems. In
 human-modified landscapes that occur in fire-driven ecosystems, it can be
 difficult to make fire management decisions, as there must be a trade-off
 between ideal conservation management and the practicalities of management
 in an altered landscape. 2. We assess how biodiversity is influenced by
 differences in fire regime in a landscape fragmented by timber production.
 Here, optimal fire management for maintaining grassland integrity is not
 always possible, due to logistical constraints and fire risk to
 plantations. We investigate thicket establishment arising from reduced
 fire frequency, and how this affects butterfly diversity, assemblage
 structure, indicator species and species associations to larval host
 plants with different growth forms. Butterflies were sampled along a
 gradient of woodiness in large-scale conservation corridors that separate
 timber compartments. 3. Percentage overall canopy cover was a key variable
 driving richness and assemblage structure. The two extreme stages along
 the successional gradient, recently burned grassland and natural forests,
 supported relatively diverse and complementary butterfly assemblages.
 Grassland corridors without fire for two years was as high in butterfly
 diversity, and similar in composition to recently-burned grasslands.
 However, corridors without fire for &gt;5 years were encroached by
 thicket and supported lower butterfly diversity. Thicket, with its
 intermediate vegetation character, was poor habitat for species adapted to
 either open grassland or to forests. Also, thicket-encroached areas carry
 high fire risk to plantations. 4. Synthesis and application: We recommend
 a divergent management approach that aims for either extreme of the fire
 frequency continuum, depending on the stage of succession and management
 logistics for each site: (1) frequent burning to prevent bush encroachment
 in less-encroached, logistically easier sites, or (2) letting succession
 run its course through thicket to forest by excluding fire in heavily
 encroached, logistically challenging sites. Both options are practically
 feasible, and maintain biotopes that have high value for butterfly
 conservation and low fire risk to plantations. This divergent management
 is a flexible strategy for the benefit of both conservation and commercial
 interests across fire-prone plantation mosaics.
description: Divergent
 management_Species and environmental data and R scriptThe file contains the
 input files and script used for analyses in R 3.2.2 assessing butterfly
 richness along a successional gradient in a grassland-timber plantation
 mosaic. Script is for the following analyses: calculation of rarefied
 species richness, plotting of rarefaction curves, linear mixed model to
 test for effect of seral stage on species richness, testing for correlated
 environmental variables, model selection and averaging to determine effect
 of env variables on species richness, indicator value analysis. Base
 tables that were used for assemblage-level analyses in Primer 6 and Canoco
 5 software are included as excel files.New Compressed (zipped)
 Folder.zip