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Plant Functional Traits In Relation To Fire In Crown-Fire Ecosystems, Juli G. Pausus, Ross Bradstock, David A. Keith, Jon E. Keeley

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Disturbance is a dominant factor in many ecosystems, and the disturbance regime is likely to change over the next decades in response to land-use changes and global warming. We assume that predictions of vegetation dynamics can be made on the basis of a set of life-history traits that characterize the response of a species to disturbance. For crown-fire ecosystems, the main plant traits related to postfire persistence are the ability to resprout (persistence of individuals) and the ability to retain a persistent seed bank (persistence of populations). In this context, we asked (1) to what extent do different life-history traits …