Katharine Senior

University of Melbourne | MSD · School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences

Background Understanding how temporal and spatial attributes of fire regimes, environmental conditions, and species’ traits interact to shape ecological communities will help improve biodiversity conservation in fire-affected areas. We compared the influence of time since the last fire at a site, and the area and diversity of post-fire successional...

Planned burning generates different types of pyrodiversity, however, experimental tests of how alternative spatial patterns of burning influence animal communities remain rare. Field tests are needed to understand the mechanisms through which spatial variation in planned fire affects fauna, and how fire can be applied to benefit biodiversity. We te...

Fire can promote biodiversity, but changing patterns of fire threaten species worldwide. While scientific literature often describes ‘‘inappropriate fire regimes’’ as a significant threat to biodiversity, less attention has been paid to the characteristics that make a fire regime inappropriate. We go beyond this generic description and synthesize h...

Fire can promote biodiversity but changing patterns of fire threaten species worldwide. While scientific literature often describes ‘inappropriate fire regimes’ as a significant threat to biodiversity, less attention has been paid to the characteristics that make a fire regime inappropriate. We go beyond this generic description and synthesize how...

Fire has shaped Australia's diverse mammal fauna for millennia. However, ongoing changes to fire regimes threaten native mammal populations, and a significant conservation challenge is to understand and promote desirable forms of pyrodiversity (variation in fire regimes). A way forward is to quantify how different aspects of pyrodiversity influence...

Small mammals are commonly surveyed using live trapping but the influence of weather conditions on trap success is largely unknown. This information is required to design and implement more effective field surveys and monitoring. We tested the influence of weather and moon phase on capture rates of small mammals in the Murray Mallee region of semi-...

Aim Extreme climatic events and large wildfires are predicted to increase as the world's climate warms. Understanding how they shape species’ distributions will be critical for conserving biodiversity. We used a 7‐year dataset of mammals collected during and after south‐east Australia's Millennium Drought to assess the roles of fire history, climat...