Pyrodiversity is the coupling of biodiversity and fire regimes in food webs

David M J S Bowman; George L W Perry; Steve I Higgins; Chris N Johnson; Samuel D Fuhlendorf; Brett P Murphy

doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0169

Pyrodiversity is the coupling of biodiversity and fire regimes in food webs

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2016 Jun 5;371(1696):20150169. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0169.

Authors

David M J S Bowman¹, George L W Perry², Steve I Higgins³, Chris N Johnson⁴, Samuel D Fuhlendorf⁵, Brett P Murphy⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia david.bowman@utas.edu.au.
² School of Environment, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
³ Department of Botany, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand.
⁴ School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
⁵ Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA.
⁶ Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

Abstract

Fire positively and negatively affects food webs across all trophic levels and guilds and influences a range of ecological processes that reinforce fire regimes, such as nutrient cycling and soil development, plant regeneration and growth, plant community assembly and dynamics, herbivory and predation. Thus we argue that rather than merely describing spatio-temporal patterns of fire regimes, pyrodiversity must be understood in terms of feedbacks between fire regimes, biodiversity and ecological processes. Humans shape pyrodiversity both directly, by manipulating the intensity, severity, frequency and extent of fires, and indirectly, by influencing the abundance and distribution of various trophic guilds through hunting and husbandry of animals, and introduction and cultivation of plant species. Conceptualizing landscape fire as deeply embedded in food webs suggests that the restoration of degraded ecosystems requires the simultaneous careful management of fire regimes and native and invasive plants and animals, and may include introducing new vertebrates to compensate for extinctions that occurred in the recent and more distant past.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.

Keywords: anthropogenic burning; ecosystem engineer; feedbacks; landscape fire; pyrogeography; trophic interactions.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Africa
Australia
Biodiversity*
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Ecosystem
Fires*
Food Chain*
Models, Biological
United States