Talk:Fire ecology

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Just as a notice, I am currently working on a full-scale revision of this page that will include an overview of peer-reviewed scientific research in fire ecology, case studies on the role that fire and fire suppression play in ecological communities, and current policies concerning fire. I expect to have a draft of the page ready by the end of January, and I look forward to members of the national and international community filling in the gaps I leave because of my western US bias. --Melpomene107 20:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking forward to it. --Allen 21:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Just as an update, what I have written for this page is currently undergoing peer review to ensure accuracy and readability. I expect it to be up soon. --Melpomene107 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I just put the first version up. I will be toying with the formatting for the next hour or so. If everyone is okay with this after a week, I will delete the old stub, the contents of which I included in my text.--Melpomene107 03:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I can't look at it anymore. Tweak away, and if you have pictures, that would be awesome! I don't want to deal with all of the copyright stuff. --Melpomene107 04:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Great job. Thanks for all your work. This was definitely a hole in Wikipedia's scope. --Allen 05:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

G'day Mel. thanks for picking up my stub and taking it on to the next stage. I got caught up with other things, like travelling to Laos. You have done a good job but I think it is too narrowly based. You acknowledge that you are coming from a Nth California perspective and have made brief reference to Fynbos of South Africa for instance but there are many more fire dependent ecosystems around the world which you could/should list. These can have very different responses to fire than Chapparal or conifer forests.) For example the Eucalypt forest of eastern Australia can show a quite different pattern of fire responses, such as greater predominance of serotiny, fire stimulated flowering, increased diversity after fire, seed hardness, ant/seed commensalism to mention a few.

I would strongly dispute your statement that "Fire-intolerant species tend to be highly flammable and completely destroyed by fire". Studies in leaf flammability with australian species (sorry I don't have the reference at hand) do not support this. Rainforest is the most important group that are often killed by fire but certainly do not have "highly flammable" leaves.

I also have a problem with you listing "Fire Severity" as a component of fire regime. I have not read Bond and Keeley but measurement of "severity" is so subjective that I question its value.

I would be happy to work with you to "broaden" the ambit of the entry but unfortunately I do not have any of my references here with me - Ironbark