A global assemblage of regional prescribed burn records - GlobalRx.

Prescribed burning (RxB) is a land management tool used widely for reducing wildfire hazard, restoring biodiversity, and managing natural resources. However, RxB can only be carried out safely and effectively under certain seasonal or weather conditions. Under climate change, shifts in the frequency and timing of these weather conditions are expected but analyses of climate change impacts have been restricted to select few regions partly due to a paucity of RxB records at global scale.

Devegetation is a widespread driver of fire in the Brazilian Cerrado.

The Cerrado is the largest tropical savanna in the world, featuring a wide range of vegetation types with different sensitivity to fire. The structure, functioning and rich biodiversity of the non-forest formations is intimately associated with the presence of fire, which historically has acted both as a natural disturbance and as a tool used by Indigenous communities. Currently, the Brazilian Cerrado is threatened by substantial devegetation (i.

The use of fire to preserve biodiversity under novel fire regimes.

Novel fire regimes are emerging worldwide and pose substantial challenges to biodiversity conservation. Addressing these challenges and mitigating their impacts on biodiversity will require developing a wide range of fire management practices. In this paper, we leverage research across taxa, ecosystems and continents to highlight strategies for applying fire knowledge in biodiversity conservation.

Prescribed burning has negligible effects on the plant-soil system in Pinus sylvestris L. forests of the European Alps.

The current increase in large wildfires is a socio-economic and ecological threat, particularly in populated mountain regions. Prescribed burning is a fuel management technique based on the planned application of fire to achieve land management goals; still, little is known about its potential impacts on tree physiology and soil properties in the European Alps, where it has never been applied. In spring 2022, we tested the effects of prescribed burning for fire hazard reduction in a dry conifer forest dominated by Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.

A picit jeu: Agent-based modelling with serious gaming for a fire-resilient landscape.

Wildfire governance requires addressing driving physical, biological and socio-economic processes, by promoting the development of fire-resistant and resilient landscapes. These landscapes can best be achieved by strategies that integrate fuel management for direct prevention with allied socio-economic activities, through the collaboration of stakeholders with different and sometimes conflicting interests. This work aims to address the need for new approaches supporting the participatory process of collective decision-making, helping stakeholders explore land management strategies for landscape fire resilience.

Evolutionary ecology of masting: mechanisms, models, and climate change.

Many perennial plants show mast seeding, characterized by synchronous and highly variable reproduction across years. We propose a general model of masting, integrating proximate factors (environmental variation, weather cues, and resource budgets) with ultimate drivers (predator satiation and pollination efficiency). This general model shows how the relationships between masting and weather shape the diverse responses of species to climate warming, ranging from no change to lower interannual variation or reproductive failure.

Widespread breakdown in masting in European beech due to rising summer temperatures.

Climate change effects on tree reproduction are poorly understood, even though the resilience of populations relies on sufficient regeneration to balance increasing rates of mortality. Forest-forming tree species often mast, i.e.

Estimating annual GHG and particulate matter emissions from rural and forest fires based on an integrated modelling approach.

Rural and forest fires represent one of the most significant sources of emissions in the atmosphere of trace gases and aerosol particles, which significantly impact carbon budget, air quality, and human health. This paper aims to illustrate an integrated modelling approach combining spatial and non-spatial inputs to provide and enhance the estimation of GHG and particulate matter emissions from surface fires using Italy as a case study over the period 2007-2017. Three main improvements characterize the approach proposed in this work: (i) the collection and development of comprehensive and accurate data inputs related to burned area; (ii) the use of the most recent data on fuel type and load; and (iii) the modelling application to estimate fuel moisture, burning efficiency, and fuel consumption considering meteorological factors and combustion phases.

Active governance of agro-pastoral, forest and protected areas mitigates wildfire impacts in Italy.

Wildfire regimes affected by global change have been the cause of major concern in recent years. Both direct prevention (e.g.

Limits to reproduction and seed size-number trade-offs that shape forest dominance and future recovery.

The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction, a foundation for assessing fitness in forest trees. Four major findings emerged.

MASTREE+: Time-series of plant reproductive effort from six continents.

Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long-lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a data set that collates reproductive time-series data from across the globe and makes these data freely available to the community.

Natural disturbances and masting: from mechanisms to fitness consequences.

The timing of seed production and release is highly relevant for successful plant reproduction. Ecological disturbances, if synchronized with reproductive effort, can increase the chances of seeds and seedlings to germinate and establish. This can be especially true under variable and synchronous seed production (masting).

Modes of climate variability bridge proximate and evolutionary mechanisms of masting.

There is evidence that variable and synchronous reproduction in seed plants (masting) correlates to modes of climate variability, e.g. El Niño Southern Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation.

The ecology and evolution of synchronized reproduction in long-lived plants.

Populations of many long-lived plants exhibit spatially synchronized seed production that varies extensively over time, so that seed production in some years is much higher than on average, while in others, it is much lower or absent. This phenomenon termed or has important consequences for plant reproductive success, ecosystem dynamics and plant-human interactions. Inspired by recent advances in the field, this special issue presents a series of articles that advance the current understanding of the ecology and evolution of masting.

Is there tree senescence? The fecundity evidence.

Despite its importance for forest regeneration, food webs, and human economies, changes in tree fecundity with tree size and age remain largely unknown. The allometric increase with tree diameter assumed in ecological models would substantially overestimate seed contributions from large trees if fecundity eventually declines with size. Current estimates are dominated by overrepresentation of small trees in regression models.

Environmental variation drives continental-scale synchrony of European beech reproduction.

Spatial synchrony is the tendency of spatially separated populations to display similar temporal fluctuations. Synchrony affects regional ecosystem functioning, but it remains difficult to disentangle its underlying mechanisms. We leveraged regression on distance matrices and geography of synchrony to understand the processes driving synchrony of European beech masting over the European continent.

Coupled effects of climate teleconnections on drought, Santa Ana winds and wildfires in southern California.

Projections of future climate change impacts suggest an increase of wildfire activity in Mediterranean ecosystems, such as southern California. This region is a wildfire hotspot and fire managers are under increasingly high pressures to minimize socio-economic impacts. In this context, predictions of high-risk fire seasons are essential to achieve adequate preventive planning.

From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: an agenda for an experimental ecology.

Highly variable and synchronised production of seeds by plant populations, known as masting, is implicated in many important ecological processes, but how it arises remains poorly understood. The lack of experimental studies prevents underlying mechanisms from being explicitly tested, and thereby precludes meaningful predictions on the consequences of changing environments for plant reproductive patterns and global vegetation dynamics. Here we review the most relevant proximate drivers of masting and outline a research agenda that takes the biology of masting from a largely observational field of ecology to one rooted in mechanistic understanding.

Drivers of persistent post-fire recruitment in European beech forests.

Climate change is expected to alter disturbance regimes including fires in European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forests. Regarding the resilience of beech forests to fire it is questionable whether seeds of this non-serotinous obligate masting seeder find advantageous conditions in a post-fire environment.

Climatically controlled reproduction drives interannual growth variability in a temperate tree species.

Climatically controlled allocation to reproduction is a key mechanism by which climate influences tree growth and may explain lagged correlations between climate and growth. We used continent-wide datasets of tree-ring chronologies and annual reproductive effort in Fagus sylvatica from 1901 to 2015 to characterise relationships between climate, reproduction and growth. Results highlight that variable allocation to reproduction is a key factor for growth in this species, and that high reproductive effort ('mast years') is associated with stem growth reduction.