Biodiversity and Conservation 3, 573-585 (1994) Changes in rodent community during recovery from fire: relevance to conservation A. HAIM and I. IZHAKI Department of Biology, University of Haifa at Oranim, Kiryat Tivon 36910, Israel Received 22 December 1993; revised and accepted 17 March 1994 Fire is a common disturbance in the Mediterranean ecosystem. A fire that broke out in the eastern Mediterranean pine forest on Mount Carmel in September 1989 destroyed thousands of hectares of natural forest. We carded out a comparative study of rodent recovery after fire under three different management regimes in order to establish the best treatment for recovery. Rodents were used as 'bio-indicators', because of their limited home range, to assess the best management practice to be used in the recovery of the post-fire habitat. Our results show that the three arboreal Palaeoarctic species which lived in this habitat before the fire either died during the fire or left the habitat as a result of its destruction. A succession of rodent species was observed. The untreated burned forest had the highest species diversity in the initial stage, while during a later stage the highest diversity was observed in plots where the burned trees were cut down, the trunks removed and the twigs collected into small piles. The results also suggest that removing the trunks and twigs at the initial stage of recolonization results in a more xeric and warm habitat which will postpone the reinvasion of the forest species. Keywords: rodents; fire; Mediterranean ecosystem; succession Introduction The Mediterranean ecosystem on Mount Carmel has asymmetrical seasonality. The rainy season, which is also cold, is relatively short, being only 4 months long. The dry season spans up to 8 months and for almost half of the year it is accompanied by high ambient daytime temperatures. Like other Mediterranean regions the long, dry, and hot season has a significant impact on the ecosystem, as the quality of most food items declines during this period and organisms face potential dehydration (Main, 1986). In spite of these conditions, a native eastern Mediterranean pine forest covers thou- sands of hectares on the higher parts of Mount Carmel. It is made up of mainly the Alepo pine, Pinus halepensis, and in its understorey, mainly the oak Quercus calliprinus. These forests belong to the Carmel National Park and are kept as a nature reserve, parts of which are open for public recreation. Most rodent species are quite limited in the distance they can travel for foraging or mating. They can therefore be used as bio-indicators of environmental quality. The eastern Mediterranean pine forest is inhabited by three arboreal rodent species. Two of these species are the Palaeoarctic wood mice of the genus Apodemus. Both species are omnivorous and include the acorns of Q. calliprinus in their diet (Granot, 1984). However, while the Mount Carmel population of the yellow-necked wood mouse, A. flavicollis (Filippucci et al., 1989), is the most southern in the Levant, the broad-toothed 0960-3115 © 1994 Chapman & Hall