Fire and herbivory are the two consumers of above-ground biomass globally. They have contrasting impacts as they differ in terms of selectivity and temporal occurrence. Here, we integrate continental-scale data on fire and herbivory in Africa to explore (i) how environmental drivers constrain these two consumers and (ii) the degree to which each consumer affects the other. Environments conduciv...

The importance of mutualism is receiving more attention in community ecology. In this study, the fire ant Solenopsis invicta was found to take advantage of the shelters constructed by the leaf roller Sylepta derogata to protect mealybugs (Phenacoccus solenopsis) against their natural enemies. This protective effect of fire ant tending on the survival of mealybugs in shelters was observed when e...

Repeated prescribed fire can create and maintain areas with sparse overstory tree cover a dense grass-forb-shrub understory, providing habitat for northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite). Despite potential benefits of fires conserving habitat, burning during the nesting season may destroy nests reduce available cover. We monitored radio-transmittered (n = 104) from 2016 to ...

Fuel maps are essential for computing spatial fire hazard and risk and simulating fire growth and intensity across a landscape. However, fuel mapping is an extremely difficult and complex process requiring expertise in remotely sensed image classification, fire behavior, fuels modeling, ecology, and geographical information systems (GIS). This paper first presents the challenges of mapping fuel...

Bird species that specialize in the use of burned forest conditions can provide insight into the prehistoric fire regimes associated with the forest types that they have occupied over evolutionary time. The nature of their adaptations reflects the specific post-fire conditions that occurred prior to the unnatural influence of humans after European settlement. Specifically, the post-fire conditi...

(Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC, 1919); P. M. Brown, M. K. Hughes, C. H. Baisan, T. W. Swetnam, A. C. Caprio, Tree-Ring Bull., in press]. 11. R. J. Hartesveldt, Nat. Hist. 73, 12 (1964); N. L. Stephenson, D. J. Parsons, T. W. Swetnam, in Proceedings-17th Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference, Tallahassee, FL, 18 to 21 May 1989 (Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL, ...

Relatively little is known about the disturbance ecology of large wildfires in the southern Appalachians. The occurrence of a 4000-ha wildfire in the Linville Gorge Wilderness area in western North Carolina has provided a rare opportunity to study a large fire with a range of severities. The objectives of this study were to 1) assess the potential for using multi-temporal Landsat imagery to map...

CSIR is a South African research institution with broad and extensive experience in the domain of fire, ranging from policy work to basic research into fire and ecology. One of the more visible fire-related applications that CSIR has been involved in is known as the Advanced Fire Information System (AFIS), a joint initiative with Eskom, the South African electricity utility. The application uti...