Weston Roundtable Lecture - Thea Whitman

Fires can have dramatic effects on ecosystems. During combustion, large stocks of carbon can “go up in smoke”, while some of the remaining carbon may be transformed into charcoal. These effects have important implications for global carbon stocks and dynamics, especially since soils hold more carbon than the atmosphere and the biosphere combined. As global fire regimes change, how will fires affect soil carbon stocks and the microbial communities that are responsible for cycling these stocks?