Ancient Drivers of Adaptations in Plant Traits

Project Information

ADAPT

Grant agreement ID: 101028501

DOI

10.3030/101028501

Project closed

EC signature date 6 April 2021

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 3 September 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 224 933,76

EU contribution

€ 224 933,76

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ADAPT (Ancient Drivers of Adaptations in Plant Traits)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The ADAPT Project addresses a pressing global issue: the increasing severity and frequency of wildfires under climate change. Recent events such as the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires and recurrent fires in California demonstrate how rising global temperatures are intensifying fire activity, threatening biodiversity, human livelihoods, and ecosystem stability. Understanding how plants have evolved to persist in fire-prone environments is essential for assessing ecosystem resilience in the face of ongoing environmental change.

ADAPT investigates the deep evolutionary origins of fire-related traits in plants, focusing on one of the earliest proposed fire-adaptive traits, branch shedding in conifers, which first appeared over 280 million years ago. The project explores whether this and other fire-related traits evolved as direct responses to wildfire or as part of broader climatic and ecological shifts.

To address this question, ADAPT integrated three key research components:
1. Palaeoecological reconstruction of late Palaeozoic landscapes revealed that ancient ecosystems were more complex and variable than previously understood, transitioning from wetland forests to drier, mosaic environments that shaped early fire regimes.
2. Flammability experimentation on living conifers established a novel protocol for shoot-level testing and demonstrated that plant functional traits contribute to ignition and combustion behaviour, providing critical data for linking modern and ancient fire dynamics.
3. Palaeofire modelling combined fossil and experimental data to estimate fire behaviour under past atmospheric conditions, showing that both fire and climate acted as long-term selective pressures influencing the evolution of fire-related plant traits.

Together, these results represent the first integrated analysis of how shifting climate, vegetation, and fire regimes interacted to shape plant evolution through deep time. The project provides a framework for interpreting the persistence and function of fire-related traits in today’s ecosystems and for anticipating their responses to future climate-driven changes in wildfire activity.
By bridging fossil evidence, modern experimentation, and modelling, ADAPT enhances our understanding of the feedbacks between vegetation, climate, and fire, knowledge that is vital for informing global biodiversity and resilience strategies in a warming world.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The ADAPT Project examined how climate change and wildfire have shaped the evolution of plants through deep time, focusing on the origins and function of fire-related traits in conifers. By integrating fossil data, modern fire experiments, and fire behaviour modelling, the project explored how interactions between vegetation, fuel structure, and fire behaviour evolved during a major climatic transition over 280 million years ago.

Work began with reconstruction of late Palaeozoic ecosystems using fossil data from the U.S. National Museum of Natural History and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Analyses revealed that ancient landscapes were more variable than previously recognised, with widespread “mosaic” environments that mixed wetland and seasonally dry elements. This finding refined understanding of biodiversity patterns, fuel loads, and the ecological shifts that accompanied early warming events.

Experimental work on living conifers developed a new shoot-level flammability protocol and generated the first comprehensive dataset linking plant form and combustion behaviour. Results showed that a compendium of plant traits, including leaf and branch structure, influence ignition and energy release, helping to explain how conifer traits evolved in fire-prone settings.

These data were incorporated into palaeofire behaviour models, which demonstrated that elevated atmospheric oxygen at times during the late Palaeozoic impacted fire intensity, suggesting that ancient fires and climate jointly influenced plant evolution.

The project’s outcomes were shared through major international conferences and peer-reviewed publications (in preparation), with datasets to be archived in open repositories. ADAPT also provided advanced training in flammability experimentation and data-model integration, strengthening future research on vegetation resilience under climate-driven fire change.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The ADAPT Project has advanced understanding of how climate and wildfire have shaped plant evolution through deep time, moving beyond the state-of-the-art in palaeobotany and fire ecology. While fire-related traits are well recognised in modern ecosystems, their origins and long-term drivers were poorly understood. ADAPT is the first project to integrate quantitative fossil analyses, experimental fire ecology, and palaeofire behaviour modelling to test how and when fire began acting as an evolutionary force on plants.

The project produced detailed reconstructions of late Palaeozoic ecosystems, showing that ancient landscapes were dominated by diverse environments mixing wet and seasonally dry habitats. These findings refine global understanding of early vegetation structure, fuel availability, and the ecological transitions associated with climate warming. Experimental work developed a novel protocol for shoot-level flammability testing and generated the first cross-family dataset on conifer flammability. Integrating these data with palaeofire models revealed that both elevated atmospheric oxygen and plant fuel load influenced ancient fire behaviour, suggesting that key conifer traits were shaped through multiple selective pressures, including fire.

Expected final outputs include three peer-reviewed publications, open-access datasets, and expanded modelling that incorporates leaf- and litter-level flammability and plant volatile organic compounds. Societal and economic impacts stem from improved predictive capacity for how vegetation responds to intensifying wildfire under climate change. ADAPT contributes methodological innovation and training in experimental fire ecology and palaeodata–model integration, providing essential tools for biodiversity conservation, landscape restoration, and fire management in a warming world.

Palaeozoic conifer fossils and shoot flammability simulations