The flammability and combustibility of plant communities are determined by species features related to growth-form, structure and physiology. In some ecosystems, such as the Mediterranean ones, these characteristics may contribute to the existence of fire-prone species. Moreover, different post-fire regenerative strategies may present different degrees of recovery, depending on the particular f...

Novel fire regimes are an important cause and consequence of global environmental change that involve interactions among biotic, climatic, and human components of ecosystems. Plant flammability is key to these interactions, yet few studies directly measure flammability or consider how multiple species with different flammabilities interact to produce novel fire regimes. Deserts of the southwest...

A study of the different mechanisms controlling the initial stages of a fire in a micro-gravity environment is presented. Three different processes are deemed important for evaluation of material flammability, piloted ignition, co-current and counter-current flame spread. The three processes are evaluated in terms of thermal theory and the different material properties controlling these combust...

We construct a model of a multispecies forest that is often affected by major fires and explicitly incorporates life-history attributes of trees that are related to fire—flammability and susceptibility to fire. The model is used to explore coexistence mechanisms in forests; two fire-dependent coexistence mechanisms were identified. The first allows coexistence along a temporal axis since the la...

Pyrogenic plants dominate many fire-prone ecosystems. Their prevalence suggests some advantage to their enhanced flammability, but researchers have had difficulty tying pyrogenicity to individual-level advantages. Based on our review, we propose that enhanced flammability in fire-prone ecosystems should protect the belowground organs and nearby propagules of certain individual plants during fir...