Fire (tropical) ecology: some knowledge shortfalls

Session: Fire impacts and lessons learnt

Presenter: Imma Oliveras (Environmental Change Institute, Ecosystems Lab, University of Oxford)

Contact email: imma.oliveras@ouce.ox.ac.uk

ECI is a multidisciplinary environmental that hosts research groups on Climate, Energy, Water, Transport, Risk Management and Ecosystems. At the Ecosystems Lab we aim to decipher how and why vegetation structure and dynamics change across abiotic gradients and the consequences of these changes are at the community and ecosystem scale. As such, our work focuses on exploring how changes in the abiotic conditions driven by global change – and particularly increases in extreme drought events and modified fire regimes – affect plant metabolism and how this aggregates to diversity and ecosystem functioning. Our research seeks to influence policy-making. We work closely with various stake-holders, governments and NGOs at both the national and international level.

Link: http://www.immaoliveras.org

ABSTRACT: My research over the last decade has mostly focused on tropical settings, looking at the effects of modified fire regimes due to anthropocentric influence, at both fire-dependant (e.g. savannas) and fire-sensitive (e.g. montane forests, tropical rainforests) ecosystems. The great bulk of this work is developed with local partners belonging to countries with severe capacity shortcomings, and we are in the need of building further collaborations to contribute to their capacity building both in terms of research and management. I am seeking to strengthen collaborations with: 1) physicists and engineers seeking at methods to improve our understanding of tissue damage in vegetation; 2) Other fire ecologists able to participate on fieldwork in remote areas, contribute to capacity building in remote tropical countries through co-supervision of students; 3) Engagement with managers that are looking to ways to engage in training and capacity building of fire managers in tropical countries; 4) Datasets and topics to engage UK-based MSc students for their theses - usually during an intense 8-10 week period. These students have very strong backgrounds, but they need data and research topics that can turn into dissertations for a short period of time (June-August). Possibility of short field trips is possible.