Fire Ecology
Fire Ecology Lab
How will ecosystems respond to global changes and what role can they play in mitigating climate change?
Ecological insights to fight climate change
Ecosystems could reduce the pace of global warming, but climate and land use change threaten this capacity. We combine field experiments across the globe with models to understand the underpinning mechanisms controlling ecosystem functioning to predict their resilience.
Fires burn 5% of the Earth's surface annually, but are changing dramatically with uncertain consequences
Fires impact just about every process in the globe: the amount of carbon and nutrients cycling through an ecosystem, how water enters and exits a landscape, the ability of farmers to clear their fields and the health of populations exposed to smoke and wildfire damage.
Mozambique subsistence agriculture
Small shareholder farms
Livestock grazing in Scotland
Carbon management
Nature restoration and preservation may help reduce net-emissions by 20%, but this estimate is based on complex assumptions about how human behavior and ecosystem management can influence carbon sequestration in landscapes. We are tackling this by a systems-level approach considering the potential for ecosystem storage and the emissions and cost of implementing change.
Testing how ecosystems and their capacity to store carbon respond to shifting disturbance regimes
Remote sensing of forest recovery following wildfire. Peatland carbon emissions after fires and draining. Agricultural-driven depletion of soil organic matter in cultivated peatlands.