Prickly questions: What is fire's place in the Sonoran desert scrub community?

The desert is hot, dry, and prickly … the perfect combination for wildfires. So, shouldn't desert plants be used to fire? It turns out that Sonoran desert scrub communities, home to the iconic saguaro cactus, are vulnerable to frequent large or severe wildfires and may not recover for centuries, if at all. Recent publications by Rocky Mountain Research Station ecologists discuss how desert plants respond to fires, and how big, how often, and how hot fires burn in this ecosystem. The Fire Regime Synthesis about Sonoran desert scrub communities and associated Species Reviews are published in the Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) - an online searchable database of research syntheses about how fire affects ecosystems and individual species. Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Can Use and access related content on Treesearch.