The steady increase in area burned by wildland fires in Canada is projected to double as climate change increases, making it really too hot to handle (Government of Canada, 2020). While this can be scary to us as humans, the local wildlife is left helpless as the flames consume their homes. This disturbance prompts community response strategies, affects wildlife disease, and interrupts relationships among plants and animals.
Wildfires are magnificent in filtering species pools and driving evolutionary selection (Miller and Safford, 2020). Since trees can not just run away, wildfires force plants to structurally evolve to survive their heat (Pausas, 2019)! This may include a reduction of modules and protecting buds within bark (Pausas, 2019). Also, animals must respond and may participate in niche construction by reducing litter around their nest or sprinting to burrows or tree hollows (Pausas, 2019). We can look to fire regime, the temporal and spatial patterns of burning in a specific ecosystem, to better understand the effects of fire on an ecosystem (Miller and Safford, 2020). As fire regimes shift, and wildfires become more frequent/intense, ecosystem diversity may be negatively affected as organisms must adapt to survive specific fire regimes (Miller and Safford, 2020).
As parasite diversity destabilizes from fires swallowing their habitat, the removal of one parasite from the environment can worsen the infection of another. Animals may be malnourished, have reduced shelter access, and have greater stress, making their immune system more susceptible to disease. Dust-borne pathogens like the fungal disease, Coccidioides, may even thrive in the changing air currents and smoke. This adjusts animals inter- and intraspecies contact networks and consequently creates downstream disease transmission (Albery, et al. 2021).
The mutualistic relationship between pollinator and plants plays a crucial role in biodiversity and is negatively affected by wildfire disturbance (Garcia, et al., 2018). Some plants can self-pollinate, however, ultimately suffer reduced genetic diversity and inbreeding depression (Brown, et al., 2017). A study completed by Garcia, et al. (2018) observed the dwarf palm, Chamaerops humilis, which is exclusively pollinated by the nursery weevil, Derelomus chamaeropis, and their interactions after being burned in forest fires. They used general linear models to investigate various pollination exclusion treatments and tested the differences in these treatments using a post-hoc pairwise comparison. There were significantly lower weevil numbers in burnt plants studied (Figure 1), however, a temporary replacement by a sap beetle provided effective pollination. The sap beetle was able to pollinate the plant at a reduced fruit set until the weevil was able to recolonize three years after the initial fire.
The flames of wildfires pose ecological consequences such as community response strategies, increased disease prevalence, and altering community relationships (such as the mutualistic relationship between pollinator and plant). These fires are expected to be too hot to handle as they become increasingly widespread and prevalent under climate change conditions (Brown, et al., 2017). On a more serious note, it is our nation-wide responsibility to take proactive measures to research and protect our ecosystems and the health of the land on which reside.
References
Albery, G., Turilli, I., Joseph, M., Foley, J., Frere, C. and Bansal, S., 2021. From flames to inflammation: how wildfires affect patterns of wildlife disease. Fire Ecology, 17(23). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-021-00113-4.
Brown, J., York, A., Christie, F. and McCarthy, M., 2017. Effects of fire on pollinators and pollination. Journal of Applied Ecology, 54(1), pp.313–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12670.
Garcia, Y., Castellanos, M. and Pausas, J., 2018. Differential pollinator response underlies plant reproductive resilience after fires. Annals of Botany, 122(6), pp.961–971. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcy122.
Government of Canada, 2020. Climate change and fire. [online] Available at: <https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/wildland-fires-insects-disturban/climate-change-fire/13155> [Accessed 13 Oct. 2021].
Pausas, J., 2019. Generalized fire response strategies in plants and animals. Oikos, 128(2), pp.147–153. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.05907.
Ramirez, D., Collins, K., Aradi, A., Conger, K. and Gustafson, D., 2019. Kinetics of Cyclophosphamide Metabolism in Humans, Dogs, Cats, and Mice and Relationship to Cytotoxic Activity and Pharmacokinetics. Drug Metabolism and Disposition, 47(3), pp.257–268. https://doi.org/10.1124/dmd.118.083766.
Comments
9 Responses to “Too Hot to Handle: Ecological Responses to Wildfire Disturbance”
Hello all,
Throughout the course of PAIx I have grown to find the concepts of plant animal interactions and their application to statistics extremely interesting. I wanted to look how these interactions were influenced by other sources. At the beginning of September, I got the opportunity with my work to relocate to BC and work in wildfire relief. Many of my colleagues ended up going. This inspired my research into wildfire response from plants and animals. I hope you find these concepts interesting as intriguing as I do and I appreciate any suggestions provided!
Thank you in advance,
Carly
Hello Carly!
This post brought me right back to PAiX and I think you did an absolutely wonderful job writing this piece. I have a couple of suggestions to help you in your editing that I hope you find useful!
1. I noticed you used a personal pronoun in the second sentence of your first paragraph. Following it was a sort of colloquial feeling sentence. I would consider rewording it to be slightly more formal. You could try something like “while this can be scary to humans, the local wildlife is left helpless as the flames consume their homes”
2. You also use “can’t” in your second paragraph. I would consider staying away from contractions where possible to help the formality of the writing.
3. Where you restate “beautiful mutualistic relationship…” I would consider rewording so it is not identical to where you say it in the fourth paragraph unless this is on purpose as a stylistic choice to draw the reader back to that paragraph.
Overall I really enjoyed this post and the figure you used, you explained it in the caption very well! I wish you the best in your editing and I look forward to reading more from you in the future!
Cheers,
Madi
Hi Carly!
Thanks for sharing this post that overviews plant-animal interactions following more frequent and intense forest fires. This is a very relevant issue that is definitely an important area of study. I just have a couple suggestions:
1) In your second paragraph, you refer to a reduction of modules in trees to protect from effects of forest fires. This might be a good term to define, as I am not sure what this means and I don’t think it’s a well-known term.
2) In the very last sentence, I think you should add “…and the health of the land ON WHICH we reside.”! I think this is more grammatically correct.
I enjoyed reading this post and I hope editing goes well!
Take care,
Gillian
Hi Carly,
Great blog post! Your work sounds so cool, I’m glad you got to share a piece of it with us!!
Here are a few suggestions:
– I agree with Madi for the sentence about the animals feeling fear, it did not fully make sense as well as the “beautiful” mutualistic relationship, which feels out of place as you did not describe other relationships in that manner (no vivid descriptor with parasitism)
– Is there any way to make your figure larger? It’s on the brink of being a bit too fuzzy and small to easily read and the asterisks look like dots because of this
– In your third paragraph you cite Albery, et al., 2021 in every sentence in the paragraph. Maybe instead cite them at the end of the paragraph, as this is all that’s required because the authors do not change in the information you are presenting. You can change this in a few more of your paragraphs where you cite the same author two sentences in a row
– In your second paragraph, I appreciate that you decided to change up the punctuation, but with in-text citations some of the meaning gets lost. Maybe change:
“Wildfires are magnificent in filtering species pools and driving evolutionary selection (Miller and Safford, 2020). Since trees can’t just run away, wildfires force plants to structurally evolve to survive their heat (Pausas, 2019)! This may include a reduction of modules and protecting buds within bark (Pausas, 2019). Animals must also respond and may participate in niche construction by reducing litter around their nest… or just sprinting to burrows and tree hollows (Pausas, 2019).” to this:
“Wildfires are magnificent in filtering species pools and driving evolutionary selection (Miller and Safford, 2020). Since trees can’t just run away, wildfires force plants to structurally evolve to survive their heat (Pausas, 2019). This may include a reduction of modules and protecting buds within bark (Pausas, 2019). Animals must also respond, and may participate, in niche construction by reducing litter around their nest or just sprinting to burrows and tree hollows (Pausas, 2019).
Wonderful work Carly!
-Clara
Hello Carly!
Wow, this article has really touched on a prevalent issue in the environmental realm in the modern world.
Here is some constructive feedback to note in your potential revisions:
– In your reference list I noticed that some of the citations didn’t include the [online], [e-book], or [pdf] tag. This usually comes after the title of the webpage or the title of the document. This could be something to consider for some citations, although not all including physical books or journal articles.
– I would consider changing this sentence “Animals must also respond and may participate in niche construction by reducing litter around their nest… or just sprinting to burrows and tree hollows (Pausas, 2019)” to “Also, animals participate in niche construction by reducing litter around their nest or sprinting to burrows and tree hollows (Pausas, 2019). By putting also at the beginning of the sentence it makes the transition of ideas clear to the reader. Moreover, the “just” doesn’t add anything to the sentence.
– The point that “wildfires force plants to structurally evolve to survive their heat” is a very interesting one. If you have more words I would give more examples of this and the data that supports it. Adding a graphic here may help to illustrate the most common genetic mutations of the native trees and how their frequencies have changed over time.
Overall, great work on this!
– Jeremy
Hi Carly,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post! It was interesting to read about how wildfire impact the relationships between organisms. I have a few suggestions:
– You could add another figure, possibly an image, to break up the text a bit more. One thing you mentioned that could be interesting to see a visual representation of is the idea that some trees will protect their buds from wildfire by keeping them within their bark.
– One term that I think could use some expanding on is pollinator exclusion treatments. I am not sure how well known that concept is.
– In your introduction, it could be beneficial to include what exactly is causing the increase in wildfires beyond just climate change in general.
I hope my suggestions are helpful. I look forward to reading the final post!
– Naya
Hello Carly,
I really enjoyed this blog post, and thought it gave a good incite into the impact wildfires have in an ecological standpoint!
Some smaller things to consider:
– Try and expand on your first sentence, “The steady increase in area burned by wild land fires in Canada is projected to double as climate change increases, making it really too hot to handle (Government of Canada, 2020)”. Possibly expand on what exactly it is too hot for, as I feel the sentence ends abruptly.
– I would also agree with Madi’s first point in removing the personal pronoun from your second sentence to be more formal.
– At some point near the beginning of your post I would consider defining the term “wildfires”, as some readers may or may not have a good understanding of what they actually are.
Overall, this was a great blog post and I look forward to reading your final piece!
Hi Carly,
I really enjoyed reading your article! Your title was awesome, and thoroughly caught my attention and I thought you explained the main effects of forest fires very well. I also really liked your conclusion and that you tied in our responsibility on the issue. Here are just a few suggestions:
1. In your first paragraph you should take out the use of personal pronouns.
2. In the last sentence of your second paragraph I would suggest changing “wildfires become more frequent or intense” to “wildfires become more frequent/intense”, as I know that climate change is expected to increase both.
3. In your third paragraph you cite the same source four times which is a little excessive. I would suggest taking out two of these (I would probably take out the second and fourth), because a citation can extent to the few sentences around it.
4. In your fourth paragraph, since you’re citing the study at the beginning then just explaining the results, you don’t need to include those additional repetitive citations.
5. Loved the title, but I would suggest only using the phrase once in the article, and I really liked how you included it at the end, so I would probably take the first one out.
Happy Editing,
Shania RM.
Thank you so much everyone for your comments, they were extremely helpful!
Happy blogging,
Carly