Wildfires transform forests into mosaics of vegetation. What, where, and which plants thrive depends on when and how severely a fire affects different areas of a forest. Such heterogeneity in the landscape is essential for animal species that benefit from fire like woodpeckers.
Anyone raised in rural areas will have vivid recollections of wildfires: the thick, ashy smell, the overcast sky on a sunny day, and the purring of aerial firefighters dropping water from their hanging tanks. The reality is that wildfires are natural events that shape biodiversity and ecosystem function (1) — to the extent that fire is intimately linked to the appearance and evolution of terrestrial plants (2). Since the Palaeolithic, our own species has used fire at will, to cook, hunt, melt metals, open cropland or paths, or tell stories in front of a hearth (3).
Where there are regular wildfires (fire-prone ecosystems), different areas of the landscape burn in different seasons and years under different weather patterns. Therefore, each region has a unique fire biography in terms of how frequently, how much, and how long ago wildfires occurred. All those factors interact will one another and with topography.
I just wrote a piece for the Flinders University alumnus magazine — Encounter — and I thought I’d share it here.
As an ecologist concerned with how life changes and adapts to the vagaries of climate and pervasive biological shuffling, ‘constant change’ is more than just a mantra — it is, in fact, the mathematical foundation of our entire discipline.
But if change is inevitable, how can we ensure it is in the right direction?
Take climate change for example. Since the Earth first formed it has experienced abrupt climate shifts many times, both to the detriment of most species in existence at any given time, and to the advantage of those species evolving from the ashes.
For more than 3.5 billion years, species have evolved and gone extinct, such that more than 99% of all species that have ever existed are now confined, permanently, to the vaults of the past.
Non-native species introduced mainly via increasing trade of goods and services have huge economic, health, and environmental costs. These ‘biological invasions’ involve the intentional or unintentional transport and release of species beyond their native biogeographical ranges, facilitating their potential spread. Over the last few decades, invasive species have incurred an average cost of at least…
Wildfire burns between 3.94 million and 5.19 million square kilometres of land every year worldwide. If that area were a single country, it would be the seventh largest in the world. In Australia, most fire occurs in the vast tropical savannas of the country’s north. In new research published in Nature Geoscience, we show Indigenous…
Australia is home to about one in 12 of the world’s species of animals, birds, plants and insects – between 600,000 and 700,000 species. More than 80% of Australian plants and mammals and just under 50% of our birds are found nowhere else. But habitat destruction, climate change, and invasive species are wreaking havoc on Earth’s…