Understanding the relationship between fire and biota is essential for biodiversity conservation
Fire is an important ecological process across many parts of the world, shaping the distribution of biomes and biodiversity. Fire regimes are changing however, and wildfires are occurring in the context of evolutionarily novel conditions for many species in the Anthropocene. Furthermore, fires occur in heterogeneous landscapes and complex feedbacks between fire regimes and vegetation can alter the trajectory of ecological recovery and future fire risk. Understanding relationships between fire regimes and the biota is essential for biodiversity conservation in a changing world.
Partnering with land management agencies allows us to understand how fire impacts plants, animals and ecosystem functions
Our research focuses on understanding how aspects of fire regimes such as intensity, frequency, season and heterogeneity affect plants, animals and ecosystem function. We partner with land management agencies to solve applied problems across a variety of different ecosystems and contexts.
Ecosystem interaction research themes are wide ranging
Our research themes include:
- How fire regimes influence plant diversity and ecosystem function
- Interrelationships between fire regimes, habitat structure and animal populations
- The utility of plant and animal traits for predicting fire responses
- Feedback between plant species composition, vegetation structure and fire risk
- The role of fire in driving species distributions
- Interactions between fire and other factors such as climatic variation, topography, land use change and competition among species
- Risks from changing fire regimes to vulnerable ecosystems such as obligate seeder forests
- Management tools for quantifying ecosystem resilience