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A Burning Story: The Role of Fire in the History of Life
Abstract
Ecologists, biogeographers, and paleobotanists have long thought that climate and soils controlled the distribution of ecosystems, with the role of fire getting only limited appreciation. Here we review evidence from different disciplines demonstrating that wildfire appeared concomitant with the origin of terrestrial plants and played an important role throughout the history of life. The importance of fire has waxed and waned in association with changes in climate and paleoatmospheric conditions. Well before the emergence of humans on Earth, fire played a key role in the origins of plant adaptations as well as in the distribution of ecosystems. Humans initiated a new stage in ecosystem fire, using it to make the Earth more suited to their lifestyle. However, as human populations have expanded their use of fire, their actions have come to dominate some ecosystems and change natural processes in ways that threaten the sustainability of some landscapes.
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“Fire has been a dominant ecological and evolutionary force on Earth since plants colonized the land about 400 Mya (Judson, 2017;Pausas & Keeley, 2009).”
From Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers (2020) · cites this paper as Pausas & Keeley, 2009
Citations
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“Fire regimes can be thought of as a spatially variable template of fire intensity, severity, type, frequency, spatial scale and seasonality, within which biotas have co-evolved (Gill, 1975; Pausas & Keeley, 2009).”
BackgroundSelf-citationFire as an evolutionary pressure shaping plant traits
Keeley, J. E., Pausas, J. G., Rundel, P. W., Bond, W. J., & Bradstock, R. A. (2011) · Trends in Plant Science · doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2011.04.002 · Cited by 1,176
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Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Pausas, J. G., & Keeley, J. E.
- Venue
- BioScience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-07
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 593-601
- ISSN
- 0006-3568 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-3244
- OpenAlex
- W2108403435
- Cited by
- 1,226
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2026: 88 · 2025: 97 · 2024: 107 · 2023: 129 · 2022: 89 · 2021: 76 · 2020: 78 · 2019: 73 · 2018: 73 · 2017: 50 · 2016: 60 · 2015: 62 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 63 · 2012: 50
- FWCI
- 37.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- BioScience (publishedVersion)
- BioOne Complete (BioOne) (submittedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Generalitat Valenciana
- Universitat de València
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Keywords
- fire, forest fires, history of life, ecosystem distribution, paleoclimate, paleoatmosphere, fire use, anthropogenic fire, landscape sustainability, biogeography
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