Winter habitat use by female caribou in relation to wildland fires in interior Alaska

The role of wildland fire in the winter habitat use of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) has long been debated. Fire has been viewed as detrimental to caribou because it destroys the slow-growing climax forage lichens that caribou utilize in winter. Other researchers argued that caribou were not reliant on lichens and that fire may be beneficial, even in the short term. We evaluated the distribution of caribou relative to recent fires (<50 years old) within the current winter range of the Nelchina caribou herd in east-central Alaska. To address issues concerning independence and spa- tial and temporal scales, we used both conventional very high frequency and global positioning system telemetry to es- timate caribou use relative to recent, known-aged burns. In addition, we used two methods to estimate availability of different habitat classes. Caribou used recently burned areas much less than expected, regardless of methodologies used. Moreover, within burns, caribou were more likely to use habitat within 500 m of the burn perimeter than core ar- eas. Methods for determining use and availability did not have large influences on our measures of habitat selectivity. Resume : Le role des feux de toundra sur l'utilisation de l'habitat par le caribou (Rangifer tarandus) en hiver fait l'objet de longs debats. Le feu est considere comme nuisible au caribou, car il detruit les lichens a croissance lente du climax que le caribou utilise en hiver. D'autres chercheurs pensent que le caribou n'est pas dependant des lichens et que le feu peut etre benefique, meme a court terme. Nous avons evalue la repartition des caribous en fonction des feux recents (<50 ans) dans les aires d'hivernage actuelles du troupeau de caribous Nelchina dans le centre-est de l'Alaska. Pour resoudre les questions relatives a l'independance et aux echelles spatiales et temporelles, nous avons utilise a la fois la telemetrie conventionnelle a tres haute frequence et la telemetrie basee sur le systeme de positionnement global pour estimer l'utilisation par les caribous de surfaces recemment brulees d'âge connu. De plus, nous avons utilise deux methodes pour estimer la disponibilite des differentes classes d'habitat. Les caribous utilisent les surfaces recemment incendiees beaucoup moins que prevu, quelle que soit la methodologie employee. De plus, sur les surfaces incendies, les caribous sont plus susceptibles d'utiliser les habitats situes a moins de 500 m du perimetre de la surface brulee que la region centrale. Les methodes employees pour determiner l'utilisation et la disponibilite n'ont pas d'influence impor- tante sur nos mesures de selectivite de l'habitat. (Traduit par la Redaction) Joly et al. 1201

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