‘Catastrophic declines’: massive data haul reveals why so many plants and animals suffer after fire

By Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University
Kristina J Macdonald, Postdoctoral research fellow, Charles Darwin University

The megafires that tore through Australia’s forests in 2019–20 burnt more than ten million hectares. The tragedy prompted a massive research effort to understand how plants and animals were affected.

So what did it uncover? Research published today in the journal Nature set out to answer that question. In a collaboration involving more than 100 scientists, we brought together data for more than 1,300 animal and plant species. As far as we know, it’s the world’s largest dataset of biodiversity responses…

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