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Abstract. Wildfires pose a significant risk to people and property, which is expected to grow with urban expansion into fire-prone landscapes and climate change causing increases in fire extent, severity and frequency. Identifying spatial patterns associated with wildfire activity is important for assessing the potential impacts of wildfires on human life, property and other values. Here, we model the probability of fire ignitions in vegetation across Victoria, Australia, to determine the key drivers of human- and lightning-caused wildfire ignitions. In particular, we extend previous research to consider the role that fuel moisture has in predicting ignition probability while accounting for environmental and local conditions previously identified as important. We used Random Forests to test the effect of variables measuring infrastructure, topography, climate, fuel and soil moisture, fire history, and local weather conditions to investigate what factors drove ignition probability for human- and lightning-caused ignitions. Human-caused ignitions were predominantly influenced by measures of infrastructure and local weather. Lightning-sourced ignitions were driven by fuel moisture, average annual rainfall and local weather. Both human- and lightning-caused ignitions were influenced by dead fuel moisture with ignitions more likely to occur when dead fuel moisture dropped below 20 %. In future, these models of ignition probability may be used to produce spatial likelihood maps, which will improve our models of future wildfire risk and enable land managers to better allocate resources to areas of increased fire risk during the fire season.

Activity of amphibians is strongly related to meteorological conditions. The threatened giant burrowing frog is rarely encountered, even when it is known to be present in an area. To improve its detectability and so improve our ability to manage the species we wanted to determine the conditions under which this species is active. Thirty-three frogs were tracked over a 2-year period, their location determined daily and activity measured as the proportion of frogs moved from the previous day. Animals were found to be active throughout the year and activity was associated with rainfall, humidity, temperature and wind strength. The results suggest that surveys for this species should be carried out after rainfall of at least 5mm, when temperatures are above 8°C, relative humidity above 60% and in still or light wind conditions.

Context The Eurasian red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a widespread pest in mixed agricultural and remnant forest habitats in southern Australia, and is controlled most commonly with baits containing poison (1080) to protect both agricultural and ecological assets. An understanding of fox movements in such habitats should assist in the strategic placement of baits and increase bait encounters by foxes across the landscape, thus improving the success of control efforts. Aims We seek to understand the ranges, movements and habitat use of foxes to aid the development of effective management plans. The fate of tracked animals was examined during a control program. Methods We radio-tracked 10 foxes using VHF transmitters and three foxes using GPS receivers during control operations in a remnant forest area near Dubbo, New South Wales. We used VHF location fixes to estimate fox range areas and GPS fixes to describe temporal and spatial aspects of fox movements and range use, focal points of activity and potential bait encounters. Selection of forest versus cleared areas was assessed, as was the impact of control operations on collared foxes. Key results Range areas (mean ± s.e.; 95% minimum convex polygon) for VHF- and GPS-tracked foxes were 420 ha ± 74 and 4462 ha ± 1799 respectively. Only small parts of range areas were visited on a daily basis, with little overlap. Animals were often within 200 m of roads and crossed or travelled on roads more than expected. At least 75% of collared foxes were probably poisoned in the control program. Conclusions Foxes occupy large ranges and move long distances in the study region, with little daily overlap, so successful defence of range areas is unlikely. Control efforts successfully poisoned foxes but also limited data collection because of reduced tracking periods. Implications The large and variable areas occupied by foxes suggested that control efforts need to be on-going, coordinated across the landscape, and use a minimum bait density of 0.5 baits per 100 ha in remnant forest habitat to ensure that gaps are minimised. Control operations should target roads and forest edges for bait placement, and increase the time that baits are available, to increase fox encounters and maximise the success of control efforts.

Context
The European red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is subject to control by poison baiting in many parts of its range in Australia to protect both native and domestic species. Assessments of baiting programs can improve their effectiveness and help ensure that long-term control outcomes are achieved.

Aims
We describe spatial and temporal patterns of bait uptake by the red fox in remnant forest within an agricultural matrix, including multiple bait-takes and hotspots of activity over time, and examine the response of foxes to baiting operations.

Methods
We analysed bait uptake (Foxoff®) from 12 baiting operations over 5 years in the Goonoo forest, a 62 500 ha remnant surrounded by cleared land in central New South Wales, Australia. More than 8000 checks of bait-stations were analysed to provide indices of fox activity per bait-check, patterns of bait removal during bait-checks, and bait uptake at stations within and across operations. Fox activity was also assessed before and after four operations using sand plots.

Key results
There was no consistent decline in relative fox activity in relation to changes in bait-take; increases in the activity index occurred in successive checks within most operations. Spatial analyses of checks within control operations showed that consecutive baits were removed at more than 70% of bait stations that were visited by foxes. Temporal analyses showed further that within an operation, multiple bait-takes occurred at ~20% of stations and, across all operations, hot spots of activity could be identified.

Conclusions
A short (2-week) baiting window in standard baiting operations may not be effective in reducing the activity of foxes across the landscape. It is likely that many baits are being cached during each operation, and that foxes move into the baited area from unbaited surrounding areas.

Implications
More frequent and timely baiting operations are needed to achieve maximum disruption to the fox population in the remnant forest environment, at least as indicated by patterns of bait-take. Increasing the distance between baits, to ~1.5 km, while reducing baiting-gaps at the landscape scale, will also be important to reduce caching and still ensure that baits are encountered.

Context The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a widespread pest in southern Australia and is subject to control over large areas using poison baits to protect both agricultural and ecological assets. Foxes and their prey are often cryptic or in low densities, making it difficult to quantify the efficacy of control programs. Aims We explore the use of remote cameras to estimate the activity and spatial occupancy of foxes and potential mammalian and avian prey species before and after poison baiting in the Goonoo region, central New South Wales. Methods In the first of two studies, we set camera traps at 48 sites in forest and cleared areas, on and off tracks, during autumn 2009. In the second study, we placed camera traps in forest and cleared areas, on tracks only, at 100 sites covering an area of ~441 500 ha during winter 2009. We examined camera-trap rates of all species detected and the activity and site occupancy of a selected subset of species before and after poison baiting. Key results Camera traps indicated greater levels of fox activity on vehicular tracks than off them, with this difference being more marked in forest than in cleared agricultural land. Fox activity and occupancy were greater in agricultural land than in forest, with no effect of baiting detected at the landscape scale. Thirty-five other mammal and bird species were identified from photos, with activity for most being greater on than off tracks. Conclusions No clear effects of fox-baiting were detected on foxes or potential prey species in either study by either activity or occupancy. The lack of a baiting effect may reflect rapid recolonisation by foxes from unbaited areas, as bait placement is generally clustered in agricultural land, or the ready availability of alternative food (lambs or lamb carcasses) in some cleared areas. Implications Our results demonstrate that remote cameras provide a simple means of monitoring changes in fox activity and occupancy at the landscape level, and that these measures have great potential to quantify the success or otherwise of fox-control campaigns on both pest and prey species.

Fire has been a source of global biodiversity for millions of years. However, interactions with anthropogenic drivers such as climate change, land use, and invasive species are changing the nature of fire activity and its impacts. We review how such changes are threatening species with extinction and transforming terrestrial ecosystems. Conservation of Earth's biological diversity will be achieved only by recognizing and responding to the critical role of fire. In the Anthropocene, this requires that conservation planning explicitly includes the combined effects of human activities and fire regimes. Improved forecasts for biodiversity must also integrate the connections among people, fire, and ecosystems. Such integration provides an opportunity for new actions that could revolutionize how society sustains biodiversity in a time of changing fire activity. ; The workshop leading to this paper was funded by the Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. L.T.K. was supported by a Victorian Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (Victorian Government), a Centenary Fellowship (University of Melbourne), and an Australian Research Council Linkage Project Grant (LP150100765). A.R. was supported by the Xunta de Galicia (Postdoctoral Fellowship ED481B2016/084-0) and the Foundation for Science and Technology under the FirESmart project (PCIF/MOG/0083/2017). A.L.S. was supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (746191) under the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation. L.R. was supported by the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub. L.B. was partially supported by the Spanish Government through the INMODES (CGL2014-59742-C2-2-R) and the ERANET-SUMFORESTS project FutureBioEcon (PCIN-2017-052). This research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station.