Josselynn Feng

Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572024, China
Author    Correspondence author
Biological Evidence, 2024, Vol. 14, No. 3   doi: 10.5376/be.2024.14.0011
Received: 19 Mar., 2024    Accepted: 27 Apr., 2024    Published: 07 May, 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Feng J., 2024, From ancient to modern: the history of human fire management in Australia's tropical savannas, Bioscience Evidence, 14(3): 93-97 (doi: 10.5376/be.2024.14.0011)

The paper "Late Pleistocene emergence of an anthropogenic fire regime in Australia’s tropical savannahs" was published in the journal Nature Geoscience on January 10, 2024, by authors Michael l. Bird, Michael Brand, Rainy Comley, et al., from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, Australia, among other institutions. The study investigates the transformation of natural fire regimes into anthropogenic ones within Australia's tropical savannahs over the last 150 000 years. Utilizing a continuous lacustrine record, the research establishes with high statistical certainty that a pivotal change occurred around 11 000 years ago, transitioning from less frequent, more intense fires to more frequent, less intense ones. This shift marks the influence of Indigenous fire management practices on the landscape, emphasizing human agency in modifying fire regimes throughout the Holocene.

Late Pleistocene; Anthropogenic fire regime; Tropical savannahs