Fire and Plants

Large regions of the world are regularly burnt either deliberately or naturally. However, despite the widespread occurance of such fire-prone ecosystems, and the considerable body of research on plant population biology in relation to fire, until now there has been no coherent conceptual synthesis of the field for use by students or researchers. This book redresses that situation. The population biology of plants in relation to fire has developed sufficiently to provide a reasonable framework for predicting the consequences of particular fires for community structure. Studies of fire ecology contribute to many areas of current research in ecology, including the importance of disturbance for maintaining diversity, non-equilibral dynamics, time lags and historical events as determinants of community composition. An understanding of plant population biology as affected by fire of immediate applied importance in forestry, conservation and range management. This book should be of interest to senior undergraduates, postgraduates and research workers in ecology, population biology, environmental science, forestry, land use studies, nature conservation, wildlife management.