Variation across biomes
Some biome types are poorly represented within our dataset, further underlining the need for additional field studies. Our analyses, however, reveal divergent responses of forb species richness to fire events depending on the biome in which they are located, with these relationships being moderated by fire type (prescribed burn or non-prescribed burn) that may be related to the biome’s historical exposure to fire (see below discussion of fire type effects). Species richness and community composition of other life forms exhibited similar responses to fire across our focal biome types. Our results thus support evidence that the increasing frequency of fire events across the tropics can influence plant communities and other taxonomic groups across a wide range of habitat types (Feng et al., 2021; Kodandapani et al., 2004), including ones which traditionally experience fire (Andersen et al., 2005, Corey et al., 2019).