News

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 …

Eliza Thompson, Julianna Santos and Ella Plumanns Pouton will be presenting at the 2023 Ecological Society of Australia Conference in Darwin from July 3 - 7. They will be showcasing their work on: bird conservation in landscapes containing a mix of eucalypt plantations and remnant vegetation, genetic diversity of animals in different types of "fire mosaics", and serotiny and plant life-cycles …

Ella, Luke and colleagues have a new paper on plant maturity and fire regimes in the journal Fire Ecology. This field study asked: how do time since fire and fire severity influence the occurrence of mature plants? The work concentrated on three serotinous species (species that hold seeds in the canopy) in the biodiverse Gariwerd landscape of Victoria. A positive influence of time …

Luke has just been awarded the 2022 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his research examining the impact of global fire patterns on the extinction risk of thousands of species. A Woodward Medal is awarded annually by the University of Melbourne for research that made a significant contribution to knowledge in a field of science and technology, or humanities and …

Julianna Santos, Kate Senior, Luke Kelly and colleagues have a new paper in Conservation Letters on fire-driven mammal declines - and a companion piece in The Conversation. The paper reveals how “inappropriate” fire patterns put 88% of Australia’s threatened land mammals at greater risk of extinction – from ground-dwelling bandicoots to tree-climbing possums and high-flying microbats. It also identifies what type …

Julianna Santos has a new paper on fire-driven reptile declines in Australia – published in Global Ecology and Biogeography. Julianna and colleagues completed a systematic review to identify fire characteristics and interacting threats associated with population declines in imperiled Australian squamates. The work was a collaboration between scientists from University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, Department of Environment, Land, Water …

Luke Kelly, Tim Curran (Lincoln University) and Sophie Wilkinson (McMaster University) have a new article on fire and biodiversity, published through 360info. They write: 'Some plants and animals love fire. Others do not. Science will help figure out which areas to burn, which to hose and how to create resilient ecosystems.' The article brings together exciting research on fire-resistant mosses, green firebreaks, …

Ella Plumanns Pouton and colleagues have a new article in Pursuit on the need for national leadership on climate policy. They write: 'Australia lacks national leadership on climate policy, but an Australian Climate Accord could foster agreement on reducing emissions while improving Australia’s living standards'. Check out the full article here: The case for an Australian climate accord.