Job Opportunity! Postdoc in Brazil: within the FAPESP Thematic Project – Biota Cerrado on Fire

Postdoctoral Fellowship within the FAPESP Thematic Project – Biota Cerrado on Fire: Fire as a tool for management and restoration in the Cerrado in the Anthropocene

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Summary: Fire is considered one of the most important ecological factors affecting plant community composition and structure in different flammable ecosystems in the world. Since plants are adapted to the fire regime, changes in fire frequency and season may lead to drastic changes in above- and belowground plant communities. Savannas are disturbance-driven systems and the savannas found in the Cerrado have evolved in the presence of fire for the last millions of years. Therefore, plants in the Cerrado show fire adapted strategies to cope with frequent fire events. However, climate change is affecting not only how the Cerrado burns, but also how plant communities respond to fire. Post-fire germination and seed traits may be key to understand how plant communities will respond to climate change, since they will influence the first stages of plant regeneration post-fire. We know that fire-related cues for germination (e.g. heat shocks, smoke) and seed traits from Cerrado species are species-specific and vary according to fire regime (e.g. fire frequency). Nevertheless, little is known about how climate changes and its interaction with fire will affect germination and seed traits of Cerrado plants.

Aims: This proposal aims to evaluate the effects of different fire regimes (e.g. fire season) and climate change (e.g. increased temperatures) on the germination and seed traits of Cerrado species. In 2025, we burned the three treatments related to fire season (early-, mid-, and late-dry season fires) and the annual fires. We sampled seeds from the first post-fire production after each fire of more than 35 species from different families and growth forms. Therefore, we already have a large set of seeds to test and measure traits from different fire regimes and new species can be sampled in the future.