An estimated10 million hectares(100,000 sq km) of land have burned since 1 July 2019.
At least28 peoplehave died.
And overa billionanimals are estimated to have been killed to date.
Some are still questioning therole of climate changein driving the Australian bushfires.
And people have been using fire to manage ecosystems for thousands of years.
We could learn a thing or two fromAboriginal peopleand the techniques they have traditionally used to prevent bushfires.
What is particularly worrying is the extent to which this is eroding the resilience of ecosystems across wide regions.
Yes, it is plausible to expect most plants and animals that have adapted to fire will recover.
But the ecological costs of huge, repetitive, high-severity wildfires on ecosystems could be colossal.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
And its unclear how much the natural world can tolerate such dramatic disturbance.
Wildfires are increasing in severity around the world.
The Australian bushfires are larger than some of thedeadliest recorded.
Incidences are also increasing in ecosystems where wildfires are uncommon, such as the UK uplands.
In Australia, for example, some estimate that the fires could drivemore than 700insect species to extinction.
Arecent reporthas highlighted that about a quarter of assessed species are threatened with extinction.
Fears for familiar and charismatic animals affected by the bushfires, such as koalas, have beenexpressed by conservationists.
All species are embedded in complex networks of interactions where they are directly and indirectly dependent on each other.
Afood webis a good example of such networks.
We then used these networks to model the resilience of the ecosystem more generally.
Our analysis revealed important differences in the way these species interacted as a result of the wildfire.
To do this, ecological interaction networks need to be considered, rather than specific species.
Cutting-edgenetwork approachesthat examine the complex ways in which entire communities of species interact can and should help with this.
