Fire as a tool to manage pollination services

Abstract

As a tool of land management and conservation there are a number of applications for which fire is poorly developed. One of those applications is the management of ecosystem services such as pollination and pest control that are provided by mobile organisms. Pollination in particular is an ecosystem service that requires improved management, in response to global declines in pollinators that present a threat to the plants that are dependent on them for reproduction. Much recent attention has been given to the effects of land use and land management generally on pollination, but little to fire as a particular form of land management. Here we develop a conceptual model describing hypothesised causal chains linking fire to pollination, and then report the initial findings of a study investigating fire effects on pollination as informed by this model for an orchid species native to Australia.