The Impact of Fire on the Reported Presence of Animals in California Deserts Using Open-Source Data

Changing fire regimes across southwest North American deserts may impact endangered animal communities endemic to the region. This study examines the impact of fires on the occurrence of endangered animal species (ES) in California desert systems and evaluates ES recovery trends using open-source data—mostly collected through citizen science—retrieved from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Mean annual NDVI was used to evaluate vegetation productivity in fire impacted desert regions. ES occurrence records were fit to generalized linear mixed models and compared pre- and post-fire to evaluate ES response to fire disturbance. ES recovery was evaluated using a incidence-based ChaoSørensen similarity index. Burned regions had higher vegetation productivity than unburned regions in some, but not all, deserts. ES continue to visit burned habitat, even 19 years after a fire. Findings suggest ES resiliency to fire disturbance, likely through habitat-use modification, and support implementing citizen science data in future ecosystem monitoring.