Rate Of Return

Fynbos is a fire climax community, which means that it requires fire to persist. The dominance of fynbos in the south-western tip of Africa is intimately linked to the occurrence of fires.

- Peter Ryan

Fynbos became the dominant vegetation type in the region some 4 million years ago, when fire displaced most of the region’s forests. However, recent studies indicate that fire played a key role in the evolution of this unique flora at least 20 million years ago and may have shaped its earliest origins some 70 million years ago.

Fynbos plants use a variety of strategies to survive fires. Some re-sprout from underground storage organs, some store their seeds in woody cones that only open after fire, and others rely on ants to bury their seeds, which require specific chemical signals found in wood smoke to germinate. Linked to these diverse survival strategies, plants also differ in their ideal inter-fire interval. Some species, like the fire lilies, emerge immediately after a fire, flower and set seed, then remain dormant until the next fire. For them, frequent fires are beneficial. Others, like some proteas, are obligate re-seeders that require sufficient time between fires for their seeds to germinate and grow into plants large enough to produce a good crop of seeds before the next fire.

Botanists still debate the ideal fire frequency, but it is generally thought to be in the range of 12 to 20 years, depending on rainfall – higher rainfall generally leads to faster regrowth and thus shorter intervals between fires. However, it is clear that at a landscape scale, plant diversity is maximised by having a mosaic of different-aged stands of fynbos.