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Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship
Increasingly, severe wildfires have led to declines in biodiversity across all of Earth’s vegetated biomes [D. B. McWethy et al., Nat. Sustain. 2, 797–804 (2019)]. Unfortunately, the displacement of Indigenous peoples and place-based societies that rely on and routinely practice fire stewardship has...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
National Academy of Sciences
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8364180/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34362847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105073118 |
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author | Hoffman, Kira M. Davis, Emma L. Wickham, Sara B. Schang, Kyle Johnson, Alexandra Larking, Taylor Lauriault, Patrick N. Quynh Le, Nhu Swerdfager, Emily Trant, Andrew J. |
author_facet | Hoffman, Kira M. Davis, Emma L. Wickham, Sara B. Schang, Kyle Johnson, Alexandra Larking, Taylor Lauriault, Patrick N. Quynh Le, Nhu Swerdfager, Emily Trant, Andrew J. |
author_sort | Hoffman, Kira M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Increasingly, severe wildfires have led to declines in biodiversity across all of Earth’s vegetated biomes [D. B. McWethy et al., Nat. Sustain. 2, 797–804 (2019)]. Unfortunately, the displacement of Indigenous peoples and place-based societies that rely on and routinely practice fire stewardship has resulted in significant declines in biodiversity and the functional roles of people in shaping pyrodiverse systems [R. Bliege Bird et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 12904–12914 (2020)]. With the aim of assessing the impacts of Indigenous fire stewardship on biodiversity and species function across Earth’s major terrestrial biomes, we conducted a review of relevant primary data papers published from 1900 to present. We examined how the frequency, seasonality, and severity of human-ignited fires can improve or reduce reported metrics of biodiversity and habitat heterogeneity as well as changes to species composition across a range of taxa and spatial and temporal scales. A total of 79% of applicable studies reported increases in biodiversity as a result of fire stewardship, and 63% concluded that habitat heterogeneity was increased by the use of fire. All studies reported that fire stewardship occurred outside of the window of uncontrollable fire activity, and plants (woody and nonwoody vegetation) were the most intensively studied life forms. Three studies reported declines in biodiversity associated with increases in the use of high-severity fire as a result of the disruption of Indigenous-controlled fire regimes with the onset of colonization. Supporting Indigenous-led fire stewardship can assist with reviving important cultural practices while protecting human communities from increasingly severe wildfires, enhancing biodiversity, and increasing ecosystem heterogeneity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8364180 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-83641802021-08-24 Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship Hoffman, Kira M. Davis, Emma L. Wickham, Sara B. Schang, Kyle Johnson, Alexandra Larking, Taylor Lauriault, Patrick N. Quynh Le, Nhu Swerdfager, Emily Trant, Andrew J. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences Increasingly, severe wildfires have led to declines in biodiversity across all of Earth’s vegetated biomes [D. B. McWethy et al., Nat. Sustain. 2, 797–804 (2019)]. Unfortunately, the displacement of Indigenous peoples and place-based societies that rely on and routinely practice fire stewardship has resulted in significant declines in biodiversity and the functional roles of people in shaping pyrodiverse systems [R. Bliege Bird et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 12904–12914 (2020)]. With the aim of assessing the impacts of Indigenous fire stewardship on biodiversity and species function across Earth’s major terrestrial biomes, we conducted a review of relevant primary data papers published from 1900 to present. We examined how the frequency, seasonality, and severity of human-ignited fires can improve or reduce reported metrics of biodiversity and habitat heterogeneity as well as changes to species composition across a range of taxa and spatial and temporal scales. A total of 79% of applicable studies reported increases in biodiversity as a result of fire stewardship, and 63% concluded that habitat heterogeneity was increased by the use of fire. All studies reported that fire stewardship occurred outside of the window of uncontrollable fire activity, and plants (woody and nonwoody vegetation) were the most intensively studied life forms. Three studies reported declines in biodiversity associated with increases in the use of high-severity fire as a result of the disruption of Indigenous-controlled fire regimes with the onset of colonization. Supporting Indigenous-led fire stewardship can assist with reviving important cultural practices while protecting human communities from increasingly severe wildfires, enhancing biodiversity, and increasing ecosystem heterogeneity. National Academy of Sciences 2021-08-10 2021-08-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8364180/ /pubmed/34362847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105073118 Text en Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Biological Sciences Hoffman, Kira M. Davis, Emma L. Wickham, Sara B. Schang, Kyle Johnson, Alexandra Larking, Taylor Lauriault, Patrick N. Quynh Le, Nhu Swerdfager, Emily Trant, Andrew J. Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship |
title | Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship |
title_full | Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship |
title_fullStr | Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship |
title_full_unstemmed | Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship |
title_short | Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship |
title_sort | conservation of earth’s biodiversity is embedded in indigenous fire stewardship |
topic | Biological Sciences |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8364180/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34362847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105073118 |
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