Harnessing extreme events as an opportunity for novel management

Conventional restoration has been ineffective at restoring grass-dominated ecosystems following conversion to resprouting shrublands. This result accords with a long history of resprouting plant ecology and perceptions that such shifts are irreversible. Our novel experiment in the Southern Great Plains showed that extreme fire during drought could disrupt the progression from grassland to closed-canopy resprouting shrubland. This novel finding highlights the potential for extreme events to provide opportunities for ecological restoration. However, these opportunities will remain unidentified without a move toward ecological experimentation designed for threshold detection under a range of conditions outside of the historical range of variation.