Restoring fire regimes through rewilding

Abstract

Accelerating anthropogenic changes to climate and landscapes have degraded ecosystems globally; these include changes to naturally occurring disturbances, such as fires. Rewilding - the restoration of ecological processes to yield complex and resilient ecosystems - is a proposed strategy to maintain biodiversity in increasingly novel systems. Fire is one important ecological process in many ecosystems around the world. However, substantial changes to fire patterns are now threatening ecosystems. Pathways for how rewilding can be used to restore fire regimes have yet to be explored. Here, we illustrate how fire regimes could be restored through rewilding, benefiting biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. First, we review how fire regimes have been altered due to anthropogenic pressures. Second, we show how fire interacts with other key ecological processes included in the rewilding framework, in particular dispersal and trophic complexity. Third, we showcase approaches to defining restored fire regimes in the context of rewilding. Fourth, we outline a general pathway to restoring fire regimes with rewilding and provide examples of rewilding actions that account for different socio-ecological contexts. Lastly, we highlight some important challenges and opportunities for rewilding in restoring fire regimes to enhance ecological function in a novel biosphere.