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How does pyrodiversity shape small mammal populations? In a new study in Journal of Applied Ecology, Julianna Santos, Holly Sitters and Luke Kelly explore how fire mosaics influence both the abundance and genetic diversity of small mammals in semi-arid Australia. Using field surveys and genome-wide SNPs for mallee ningaui and Bolam's mouse, Julianna and team found species-specific responses to fire patterns. Mallee …

What are the evolutionary implications of changes in fire regimes for animals? Luke Kelly and colleagues explore this in their new paper in Global Change Biology. They build on a recent plant-focused application of the phenotype–environment mismatch concept, extending it to animals to understand the evolutionary and ecological consequences of altered fire regimes. Mismatches are primarily studied in the context of climate-driven changes, …

Luke Kelly and colleagues explore the evolutionary consequences of changing fire regimes in their new paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. As fire patterns shift across the globe, plant populations need to keep up. Luke and team show that variation in fire-related traits – such as resprouting, serotiny, and bark thickness – is widespread within plant species. This intraspecific variation provides …

Ella Plumanns Pouton, Luke Kelly and team have a new paper on the timing of fires and plant species occurrence in the soil seedbank, in Journal of Applied Ecology. Ella led a team that sampled the soil seedbank across 57 sites that represent a range of fire frequencies (1–9 fires in 81 years) and time since fire (1–81 years). And through a 15-month germination experiment, …

Ella Plumanns Pouton, Luke Kelly and team have a new paper on using plant functional types to predict the influence of fire on species relative abundance – published in Biological Conservation. Ella and team first brought together a wealth of knowledge on the traits that plant species exhibit in response to fire, including whether or not they are stimulated to resprout …

Eliza Thompson, Luke Kelly and Rod Keenan have a new paper on nest boxes and animal conservation in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. Nest boxes are widely used to supplement natural tree cavities used by fauna, particularly in “working lands” where large, old trees are cleared or harvested. Eliza led a systematic review to provide a global overview of the scientific …

Luke Kelly was invited to speak at Half-Earth Day 2023, held in Montreal, Canada. Hosted by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, Half-Earth Day brings together people from around the world and across disciplines to share their unique perspectives on how to ensure the health of the planet for future generations. Luke spoke about how human activities are reshaping patterns of fire across …

Luke Kelly, Ella Plumanns Pouton and colleagues have a new paper titled Understanding Fire Regimes for a Better Anthropocene – published in Annual Review of Environment and Resources. We used satellite data to create global maps of where and how fires are burning. We calculated about 3.98 million square kilometres of Earth’s land surface burns each year. We also examined research …