Editorial: Understanding ecosystem resilience through physiological and ecological responses to bushfires

Fire has shaped terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years, influencing the structure, composition, vegetation dynamics and biodiversity of plant communities (Bowman et al., 2009). Many ecosystems have evolved under fire regimes that vary in severity, seasonality, and frequency. In response, plant species have developed a range of physiological and life-history traits that enable persistence and recovery following fire. These include thick bark that protects living tissues from high temperatures, seeds whose dormancy is broken by the heat pulse or smoke generated during fire, and the capacity to resprout from protected buds or belowground organs after fire (e.g., Simpson et al., 2021;Lamont, 2022). For example, many perennial grasses rapidly regenerate from basal meristems after the aboveground biomass is consumed by fire (Figure 1).However, fire regimes are now shifting under global climate change. Rising temperatures, prolonged drought, and greater seasonal extremes, together with increasing human influences, are contributing to more frequent and severe wildfires in many parts of the world. These changes are testing the resilience of ecosystems that historically experienced more predictable fire cycles. Repeated highintensity fires can reduce vegetation recovery, shift species composition, and drive transitions from forest to shrubland or grassland systems with lower carbon storage capacity (e.g., Coop et al., 2020).Understanding ecosystem responses to changing fire regimes is essential for predicting future 39 ecosystem changes and management strategies (e.g., Dooley et al., 2023)