Multidecadal effects of fire in a grassland biodiversity hotspot: Does pyrodiversity enhance plant diversity?

ABSTRACT: Native grasslands have been vastly transformed with the expansion of human activities. Applied fire regimes offer conservation-based management an opportunity to enhance remaining grassland biodiversity and secure its persistence into the future. Fire regimes have complex interactions with abiotic and biotic ecosystem components that influence environmental heterogeneity and biodiversity. We examined the pyrodiversity-biodiversity hypothesis, which suggests that more species are supported where pyrodiversity, that is, the level of environmental heterogeneity associated with different fire regimes, is greater. A mesocosm-type field experiment, maintained for 38 yr, was used to determine the response of plant diversity to 1-, 2-, 5- and 12-yr fire-return interval treatments, with early-dorma

SUBMITTER: Gordijn PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9285089 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature