Extreme fire regimes and phenotypic plasticity in herbaceous plants: can resistance to extreme temperature events be selected by disturbances?

• Grant number: 25/25101-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2025
• End date: September 30, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany - Pant Physiology
• Principal Investigator: Davi Rodrigo Rossatto
• Grantee: Daniela Ofélia Antonioli
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/16620-0 - Fire as a tool for management and restoration in the Cerrado in the Anthropocene, AP.BTA.TEM

Abstract

Fire is considered one of the most important ecological factors influencing the composition and structure of plant communities across various fire-prone ecosystems worldwide. Because plants are adapted to specific fire regimes, changes in fire frequency and seasonality can lead to drastic alterations in functional traits, affecting their resilience, resistance, or persistence under extreme environmental changes such as temperature increases. Following fire events, plants are able to produce new leaves with more acquisitive morphological and physiological characteristics, which may influence their capacity to tolerate extreme temperature events. Assessing leaf thermotolerance is crucial for understanding plant persistence and productivity under novel climate change scenarios, particularly for herbaceous-graminoid species, which are the most abundant and dominant group in savanna ecosystems. Therefore, this proposal aims to analyze, within the context of the leaf economics spectrum, whether extreme fire regimes (complete fire exclusion and annual burning) select for specific functional traits that are reflected in different degrees of leaf thermotolerance.