LAUSR

Ecological disturbance is a major driver of ecosystem function, structure and composition, and the set of ecological disturbances that typifies an ecosystem also exerts powerful evolutionary pressures, often leading to characteristic adaptation syndromes in member species (Denslow, 1980; Grubb, 1977; Pickett & White, 2013; Sousa, 1979). Fire is the most important disturbance process in many global ecosystems, and it acts both as a powerful filter of the species pool and as a strong driver of evolutionary selection (Bond & van Wilgen, 1996; Bowman et al., 2009; Keeley, Bond, Bradstock, Pausas, & Rundel, 2011). The concept of the fire regime (i.e., the temporal and spatial patterns of burning that characterize an ecosystem, averaged over many fires over a long period of time) provides a useful framework for understanding the effects of fire on the ecosystem and how they can be modified by humans (Keeley & Safford, 2016; Sugihara, van Wagtendonk, Shaffer, Fites-Kaufman, & Thode, 2006). Many factors influence fire regimes on landscapes, Received: 5 May 2019 | Revised: 11 March 2020 | Accepted: 9 April 2020 DOI: 10.1111/geb.13115