It is becoming increasingly apparent how different plant species are responding to fire in very different ways. Understanding these fire-response traits is vital for predicting how plant communities recover after fire, and for developing fire management strategies that support both biodiversity and landscape resilience.
To address this, researchers from UNSW in Sydney, including David Keith and Andrew Denham, have developed the Fire Ecology Database — a comprehensive resource designed to capture and organise data on how plants respond to fire. The database accounts for the complexity of fire ecology, linking individual species traits to fire events at the individual, population, and community level.
Key features of the database include:
- Detailed source information, capturing whether data came from field observations, laboratory trials, or expert application.
- Clear, consistent vocabularies for fire-related traits and data collection methods.
- Documentation of uncertainty in both observations and data aggregation, making the limitations of available information transparent.
- Covers 14 key traits for over 6,200 plant species, drawn from more than 64,000 records.
By providing a flexible, well-documented framework, the Fire Ecology Database offers an invaluable tool for land managers, ecologists, and fire agencies aiming to make evidence-based decisions about prescribed burning, post-fire recovery, and biodiversity management. This resource will help support more targeted, ecologically sensitive fire strategies into the future.
Read the journal, available with open access here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-04705-6
References: Ferrer-Paris, J.R., Sánchez-Mercado, A., Cornwell, W.K., Ooi, M., Tozer, M., Mackenzie, B.D., Woodward, R., Denham, A.J., Auld, T.D. and Keith, D.A., 2025. Fire ecology database for documenting plant responses to fire events in Australia. Scientific Data, 12(1), p.399.
The website for the database is available here: http://fireecologyplants.net/
This article was written by Campbell Goff, the Healthy Ecosystems Project Officer with the Nature Conservation Council of NSW’s Bushfire Program.
Image: Banksia taken by Ken Kuo
