Surviving fires — vegetative and reproductive responses

Abstract

Fire directly affects plant growth, survival and reproduction and can impact the dynamics of seeds and seedlings. Fire is one of the few natural disturbances that, alone or in combination with other forces, regularly kills mature plants. This makes it an important agent in structuring communities, since the new openings created provide the potential for vegetation change. Amongst herbivores, perhaps only elephants or bark-feeding vertebrates approach fires in their importance as killing agents.