If a tree has already been damaged, fire can actually help to make things better
complicated thing. Given the facts that elephant damage often kills trees and bush fires often kill trees it would be reasonable to deduce that a combination of the two would make things worse. Counter-intuitively, though, as research just published in, by Benjamin Wigley of Nelson Mandela University in South Africa shows, if a tree has already been damaged, fire can actually help to make things better.
To keep things consistent, he looked at the fate of a single tree species, the marula , in all three zones. He picked marulas because they are particular victims of elephant activity. Their fruit are delicious, and prized by elephants and people alike. But elephants also seem to enjoy eating their bark.
To their surprise, they discovered that the wounds of trees in fire zones recovered far better than those of trees that had seen no fires at all. Wounded trees in the annual burn zone regrew 98% of their lost bark during the two years of the study. Those living in the biennial burn zone regrew 92% of it. But those in the zone where fires were suppressed regrew only 72%.
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