Temporal changes in the breeding bird community caused by post-fire treatments after the Samcheok forest fire in Korea

The Samcheok forest fire of April 2000 was the biggest stand-replacing fire recorded in Korea, and led to the largest-scale salvage logging operation (performed until 2005) ever implemented. We investigated the effects of the treatments performed after the fire on the breeding bird community in 2002–2005 (the management period) and 2006–2008 (the post-management period). A total of 75 line transect surveys resulted in 660 detections of 54 species in undisturbed stands (CO), in burned and naturally restored stands (NI), and in burned and logged stands (IT). Four species (Parus major, Aegithalos caudatus, Dendrocopos kizuki, and Parus ater) were identified as indicator species in CO which showed no temporal changes in bird communities and habitat structure. Among the various stand treatments, the standardized species richness was highest in CO (11.6 ± 4.6 species/transect in 2002–2005, 12.1 ± 3.5 in 2006–2008), and this richness did not change over time. On the other hand, low richness was observed in NI (6.8 ± 2.6 in 2002–2005, 9.6 ± 2.3 in 2006–2008), and the lowest richness was seen in IT (5.0 ± 2.4 in 2002–2005, 6.1 ± 1.8 in 2006–2008), but both of these increased over time. Although the bird abundances in NI and IT were lower than those in CO (38.0 ± 27.7 birds/transect in 2002–2005, 31.3 ± 10.9 in 2006–2008), the abundances in NI (15.1 ± 8.6 in 2002–2005, 17.6 ± 11.4 in 2006–2008) and IT (11.7 ± 8.3 in 2002–2005, 10.0 ± 4.6 in 2006–2008) were not significantly different. There was no significant difference in abundance between time periods for any of the stand treatments. These results imply that NI (i.e., no salvage logging) allows greater bird richness but not abundance to be recovered compared to IT. No indicator species was consistently present in NI throughout the two time periods covered due to the rapid regrowth of vegetation, but four open-habitat dwellers (Falco tinnunculus, Phoenicurus auroreus, Emberiza cioides, and Sturnus cineraceus) colonized IT during the post-management period. The bird assemblage in IT, as assessed by canonical correspondence analysis, shifted to open habitats, while the avifauna in NI became similar to that in CO over time. While post-fire treatment can provide new colonization opportunities for open-habitat dwellers, the slow colonization process, the low species richness, and the low bird abundance observed in large areas of IT indicate that post-fire treatment using salvage logging inhibits the restoration of forest bird communities by producing a poorer breeding bird community that is very different from the original one. Based on these lessons from the response to the Samcheok forest fire, we suggest that preserving as much of the disturbed forest as possible is essential, and that the current approach to post-fire treatment—intensive salvage logging—needs to be revised to ensure the effective restoration of breeding bird communities in disturbed temperate pine forests.