Wading Through Research

Blog By: Grace McLeod Check out Contributing Bloggers for Bio If you’ve taken a walk through the FIU nature preserve recently, you may have noticed, it looks a little different. The core of the preserve is an endangered pine rockland ecosystem. These forests used to cover what is now the Miami urban area. Today, only a few small patches remain, making it one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. But just protecting these remnant patches from further development isn’t enough; in order to keep them healthy, they need to burn! Pine rocklands are what we call a fire-dependent ecosystem. This means that they depend on regular disturbance by fire to maintain their biodiversity, structure, and ecological function. In the prolonged absence of fire, the upwards of 15 endemic plants found in these forests begin to be outcompeted by less fire-adapted species. In as little as 15-20 years without fire, the forest will transition to an entirely different ecosystem. But as you can imagine,