Fire and biodiversity in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Fire has been a source of global biodiversity for millions of years. However, interactions with anthropogenic drivers such as climate change, land use, and invasive species are changing the nature of fire activity and its impacts. We review how such changes are threatening species with extinction and transforming terrestrial ecosystems. Conservation of Earth’s biological diversity will be achieved only by recognizing and responding to the critical role of fire. In the Anthropocene, this requires that conservation planning explicitly includes the combined effects of human activities and fire regimes. Improved forecasts for biodiversity must also integrate the connections among people, fire, and ecosystems. Such integration provides an opportunity for new actions that could revolutionize how society sustains biodiversity in a time of changing fire activity.

Tree planting: A double‐edged sword to fight climate change in an era of megafires

“…Although fire is a key ecological disturbance driving ecosystem dynamics, functioning and biodiversity worldwide (Kelly et al, 2020), the increasing frequency of the so-called megafires poses new challenges for environmental and health protection never faced before. Indeed, in the last years, we have witnessed an increase in the prevalence of these large fires and how they override the current firefighting systems, posing an increasing threat to health, the economy and biodiversity (Wintle et al, 2020), and significantly contributing to increase carbon emissions globally.…”

Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship

“…Indigenous fire stewardship | pyrodiversity | cultural burning | habitat heterogeneity | global fire synthesis H umans have used fire as a tool for resource management, community protection, and cultural purposes for millennia; however, changes to fire regimes as a result of more recent human actions have exacerbated incidents of large and destructive wildfires (1)(2)(3). This new era of wildfire has altered the behavior of fire activity and is threatening biodiversity at a global scale such that identifying and implementing human-fire interactions that support a variety of social and ecological values is becoming increasingly urgent (3,4). Fortunately, the revitalization of Indigenous fire stewardship (IFS) is demonstrating the value of routinely applying controlled fire to adapt to changing environments while promoting desired landscapes, habitats, and species and supporting subsistence practices and livelihoods (5).…”

Fire and Its Interactions With Other Drivers Shape a Distinctive, Semi-Arid ‘Mallee’ Ecosystem

“…Fire shapes ecosystems worldwide (He et al, 2019;Kelly et al, 2020). Over half of Earth's land surface is affected by fire, and some 30% experiences frequent fire (Chuvieco et al, 2008).…”

“…There is increasing recognition of the role of fire as a major ecological and evolutionary force that has influenced global patterns of biodiversity, including the composition and structure of vegetation, species richness at local and landscape scales, levels of endemism and functional traits of plant and animal communities (He et al, 2019). Human activity and anthropogenic drivers (e.g., land use, biotic invasions, climate change) increasingly are transforming fire activity, with at least 4,400 species from a wide range of taxa and habitats facing threats associated with changing patterns of fire (Kelly et al, 2020). Importantly, fire does not occur in a uniform manner; rather, fire regimes -including the size, severity, frequency, season, extent and patchiness of fires -differ in distinctive ways between ecosystems (Chuvieco et al, 2008;Archibald et al, 2013).…”