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Published online 28 January 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050124-16
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Fire shapes global vegetation
A world that never burned would contain twice as much forest.
An area's temperature and rainfall have always been thought of as key to which plants grow there, to whether it becomes grassland, savanna or forest. But fire may have the biggest influence on the global distribution of vegetation, report researchers from South Africa and Britain.
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