Collection

Special Issue: Climate change and altered fire regimes: impacts on plant populations, species and ecosystems

Submission status
Closed

The extreme fire seasons of 2019 and 2020 in Australia and western North America have highlighted the link between climate warming and increases in the size, severity, and duration (e.g., longer fire seasons) of fires. While shifts in fire regimes alone are capable of driving profound changes in plant populations, species and ecosystems, the added effects of changing climate on plant demographic rates may compound these changes and pose serious threats for conservation of fire-adapted ecosystems. Among these, post-fire recruitment failure due to drying climate is now increasingly being documented across biomes, while reduced rates of survival, growth and reproduction in fire-free intervals may also increase population/species vulnerability to decline and ecosystems to state change.

This special issue seeks to provide a forum for research into the current and prospective future impacts of fire-climate interactions on plant populations, species and ecosystems. Contributions were invited to address this topic with research using empirical, experimental (field and laboratory) and/or modelling approaches.

We sought contributions from a diverse group of scientists across career stages and identities, from a wide variety of regions globally, and for a range of species and ecosystems characterised by different fire and climate regimes. Specific researchers and research groups with past and existing research on this topic were also invited to contribute.

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Editors

  • Neal Enright Neal Enright  &

    Neal Enright

    Emeritus Professor at Murdoch University, Prof. Enright retired at the end of 2018. From 2013-2018, he was Dean of Graduate Studies with responsibility for policy and procedures relating to the candidature of graduate research degree students of the university. Prof. Enright continues to undertake research and PhD student supervisions in Environmental and Conservation Sciences at Murdoch, and is co-Editor-in-Chief of Plant Ecology (Springer) since 2009.

  • Brian J. Harvey Brian J. Harvey

    Brian J. Harvey

    Dr. Harvey is the Jack Corkery and George Corkery Jr. Endowed Professor in Forest Sciences and Assistant Professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington. His research focuses on understanding the nature of forest disturbances (e.g., fires and insect outbreaks) – and how forest structure and function is shaped by disturbances, interactions among disturbances, and climate. Dr. Harvey’s work emphasizes field studies that are integrated with large spatial datasets and analyses, drawing on insights from landscape ecology and community ecology.

Articles (12 in this collection)