In our modern era of larger, more destructive, and longer-lasting fires — called the Pyrocene — plants and animals are evolving quickly to survive. By synthesizing the wide body of research about rapid animal evolution in response to fire, a multidisciplinary team of ecology experts hopes to leverage what we already know to help foster evolution-informed conservation plans. In this way, they suggest, we can try to harness the ways in which fire impacts animals to protect vulnerable species — working with evolution instead of against it.
