Bark is a vital and very visible part of woody plants, yet only recently has bark characteristics
started to be considered as key traits structuring communities and biomes. Bark thickness is …

Global variation in total bark thickness (TBT) is traditionally attributed to fire. However, bark
is multifunctional, as reflected by its inner living and outer dead regions, meaning that, in …

Most biological structures carry out multiple functions. Focusing on only one function to
make adaptive inferences overlooks that manifold selection pressures and tradeoffs shape …

A minuscule fraction of the Earth's paleobiological diversity is preserved in the geological
record as fossils. What plant remnants have withstood taphonomic filtering, fragmentation …

Global change is expected to increase savanna woody encroachment as well as fire
spreading into forest. Forest–savanna ecotones are the frontier of these processes and can …

Aims Savanna and forest biomes co‐occur across many subtropical landscapes in Africa,
and can be differentiated by their fire regime: fires are more frequent in savannas compared …

Bark thickness is ecologically crucial, affecting functions from fire protection to
photosynthesis. Bark thickness scales predictably with stem diameter, but there is little …

The increasing density of woody plants threatens the integrity of grassy ecosystems. It
remains unclear if such encroachment can be explained mostly by direct effects of resources …

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: In fire‐prone ecosystems, variation in bark thickness among
species and communities has been explained by fire frequency; thick bark is necessary to …

Background Fire is recognized as an important factor in determining the distribution and
composition of Southern Cape Afrotemperate Forest in South Africa, although …