About

Adam Pellegrini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. He leads the Pellegrini Fire Ecology Lab, which is dedicated to fostering a healthy working environment that encourages creativity, hard work, and balance with life commitments. The lab is a diverse group that enjoys a collaborative and engaging atmosphere. Adam Pellegrini's research interests focus on understanding how ecosystems function, with a particular emphasis on fire ecology and its effects on ecosystem processes. He earned his PhD from Princeton University in 2016, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University until 2020. Subsequently, he served as a faculty member at the University of Cambridge from 2020 to 2025 before returning to Stanford in 2025. His work contributes to advancing knowledge on ecosystem dynamics, particularly in relation to fire and its ecological impacts.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Biology
• Geography
• Soil science
• Environmental resource management
• Social Science
• Atmospheric sciences
• Sociology
• Business
• Environmental ethics
• Engineering
• Environmental planning
• Chemistry
• Civil engineering
• Agronomy
• Geology

Selected publications

• Priority research directions for wildfire science: views from a historically fire-prone and an emerging fire-prone country

  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2025-04-01 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Fire regimes are changing across the globe, with new wildfire behaviour phenomena and increasing impacts felt, especially in ecosystems without clear adaptations to wildfire. These trends pose significant challenges to the scientific community in understanding and communicating these changes and their implications, particularly where we lack underlying scientific evidence to inform decision-making. Here, we present a perspective on priority directions for wildfire science research-through the lens of academic and government wildfire scientists from a historically wildfire-prone (USA) and emerging wildfire-prone (UK) country. Key topic areas outlined during a series of workshops in 2023 were as follows: (A) understanding and predicting fire occurrence, fire behaviour and fire impacts; (B) increasing human and ecosystem resilience to fire; and (C) understanding the atmospheric and climate impacts of fire. Participants agreed on focused research questions that were seen as priority scientific research gaps. Fire behaviour was identified as a central connecting theme that would allow critical advances to be made across all topic areas. These findings provide one group of perspectives to feed into a more transdisciplinary outline of wildfire research priorities across the diversity of knowledge bases and perspectives that are critical in addressing wildfire research challenges under changing fire regimes.This article is part of the theme issue 'Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks'.

  PublisherDOI

• Spatial configuration of severely burned patches within megafires explains ecosystem resilience 

  2025-03-14

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  It is becoming increasingly important to understand how ecosystems will recover from wildfires, which are increasing in frequency, severity and size, especially in coniferous forests. Megafires—defined as wildfires burning exceptionally large areas—are thought to have more negative effects on ecosystems than smaller fires. However, the effects of megafires vary substantially, and one hypothesis is that intra-fire heterogeneity of burn patches can dictate the recovery of ecosystems. We evaluated the role of spatial configuration of burn patches within megafires using remote sensing data of fires and vegetation at 30x30 m resolution across 36 years and field-survey data of forest recovery in the western USA. Megafires contributed 62% of total burned area, with their frequency explaining 83% of the variation in the inter-annual burned area from 1984-2020. However, megafire size alone did not inherently result in severe ecosystem transitions, with megafires that experienced large contiguous patches of severely burned forest taking longer to recover. Field surveys illustrated delayed recovery resulted from a tree dispersal-limitation threshold of ca. 150 m, such that increasing distance from intact coniferous forest significantly delayed recovery. Machine learning image classification revealed that the rate of recovery in the severely burned areas has declined by ca. 50% from 1984-2020, with distance from seed source being more important than all climate variables analysed. Consequently, spatial configuration of high-severity burn patches within fires—which have become both larger and more compact through time—are key for assessing the effect of megafires on forest resilience.

  PublisherDOI

• Unprecedented Scottish megafire leads to widespread peat carbon losses

  Research Square · 2025-12-10

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global risk of wildfire across timber production systems

  Nature Communications · 2025-05-06 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Timber is worth $1.5 trillion US Dollars annually with demand rising, but wildfires increasingly threaten production. Plantations occupy 3% of forests globally and produce 33% of the world's timber, but a critical question is whether they are more vulnerable to stand-replacing wildfires than natural production forests. We combine forest management and wildfire data to estimate that 15.7 (14.7-16.7) million hectares of natural production forests and 1.4 (1.26-1.64) million hectares of plantations suffered stand-replacing wildfires between 2015 and 2022. Using statistical matching for 17 countries representing 50% of global production and 75% of burned timber-producing forest, we find plantations in temperate regions were twice as likely to suffer stand-replacing wildfires than natural production forests, including in vital timber-producing nations like China and Russia. Plantations in tropical regions showed no clear effect, with national differences ranging from 75% lower to 58% higher risk of burning. Given increasing global reliance on plantation timber, preventing wildfires through landscape-level planning, fire management, and increased plantation diversity is critical for global wood security.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A bottom-up perspective on how fire changes ecosystem biogeochemistry via plant-soil interactions

  Plant and Soil · 2025-11-19 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Background and Aims: The effect of fire on plants and soils cannot be viewed in isolation. Plant-soil interactions, and their role in determining the response of ecosystem to fire, has been a widely debated topic. Most studies describe patterns rather than the mechanisms that may lead to variable effects on soils across ecosystems. Methods: In this mini-review, we compile the literature on fire effects on soil processes to propose that a bottom-up framework considering plant-soil interactions is needed to explain the myriad of effects that fire has on soil biogeochemistry. Results: We highlight a number of processes that may be at play: (i) soil carbon saturation and mineral stabilization dynamics; (ii) nutrient-acquisition strategies (e.g., plant-microbial symbioses) and the emergence of biogeochemical feedbacks; (iii) physical soil changes that constrain carbon and nutrient turnover. We then highlight papers in this Special Issue on fire and plant-soil interactions that address these three processes to unpack how fire changes biogeochemical cycling in an ecosystem. Conclusion: We conclude that while shifts in plant biomass composition and inputs consistently influence soil properties across studies, increasing evidence shows the critical role of plant-soil interactions in determining belowground processes.

  PublisherDOI

• Regenerative Agriculture: Trade-offs and Win-Win Scenarios for Soil Carbon Sequestration and Crop Yields

  2025-03-15

  preprintOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The world is grappling with the dual crises of climate change and food insecurity. The global food system, responsible for nearly one-third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, plays a pivotal role in addressing these challenges. Regenerative agriculture, which includes practices like reduced tillage, cover cropping, and crop residue retention, has been proposed as a nature-based solution with the potential to sequester carbon in agricultural soils while maintaining or enhancing food production. However, the concurrent effects of regenerative agriculture on soil carbon stocks and crop yields have not been fully explored. In particular, the extent to which regenerative agriculture will lead to trade-offs between carbon sequestration and food production, and how this relationship is modulated by environmental and agronomic conditions, remains unclear.To address this, we conducted a global meta-analysis encompassing 5,709 paired yield and soil carbon observations from 506 sites comparing conventional systems to those incorporating one or more regenerative practices. Results show that 50% of observations exhibit significant gains in crop yields or soil carbon, with 16% achieving both (win-win). In contrast, only 7.5% show losses, and just 1.5% experience a lose-lose scenario. Importantly, the magnitude of changes in soil carbon and yields is primarily influenced by agronomic factors such as the combination of regenerative practices, nitrogen application rate, and crop type, with lesser effects from soil and climate conditions. These findings indicate that regenerative agricultural practices are unlikely to harm yields or soil carbon stocks and can be optimized to maximize win-wins by tailoring adoption to favorable conditions.

  PublisherDOI

• Identifying win-win opportunities and trade-offs for sustainable agriculture to improve agricultural productivity and soil carbon sequestration: A global meta-analysis

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-09-05

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Faced with accelerating climate change and growing food insecurity, sustainable agriculture has the potential to address both issues by enhancing soil carbon sequestration and crop yields. However, it remains unclear whether and when sustainable agricultural practices create win-wins or trade-offs between soil carbon sequestration and food production, and how these outcomes vary across crop types, practice combinations, and environmental conditions. We conducted a global meta-analysis of 2,975 paired yield and topsoil carbon observations (and 498 subsoil carbon observations) from 487 articles to assess the simultaneous impacts of reduced tillage, cover cropping, complex crop rotations, and crop residue retention on soil organic carbon stocks and maize, wheat, rice, and soybean yields. Our analysis revealed that sustainable agricultural practices generally enhanced soil carbon and crop yields, although with considerable heterogeneity. Individual practices often resulted in management trade-offs, as different practices (and crop-practice combinations) optimized either yields or soil carbon sequestration. However, practice stacking often alleviated these trade-offs by combining complementary practices. Win-wins were most likely in marginal agricultural lands characterized by warmer temperatures, water limitation, and low nitrogen application rates – conditions that represent a substantial proportion of global agricultural land area. However, our analysis revealed that the subsoil carbon responses to sustainable agricultural practices were highly variable and may offset topsoil gains, which may limit effective policy design and large-scale implementation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pathways towards climate and health co-benefits in global ruminant sector

  Research Square · 2025-06-27

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Spikes in UK wildfire emissions driven by peatland fires in dry years

  Environmental Research Letters · 2025-02-21 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Wildfires on peatlands can nearly double global fire-driven carbon emissions, requiring centuries to re-sequester carbon (C) losses. Peatland fires require sufficiently hot, dry conditions and/or drainage for the peat to burn. Although these conditions have historically been infrequent, the warming and drying climate could increase the potential for wildfires and subsequent emissions. Here, we evaluate how climate change impacts peatland fire emissions by using the United Kingdom as a case study—where peatlands store an estimated 3.2 PgC. We use a fire emission model to quantify fire-driven C emissions using high-resolution land-surface data and fire-weather indices. Between 2001 and 2021, we estimate 0.8 TgC has been emitted from fires on peatlands, which can contribute up to 90% of total annual UK fire-driven C emissions. Consequently, protecting peatlands from fires in the UK would be a cost-effective way to slow climate change by avoiding future emissions. Peatland emissions spike during prominent dry years, implicating the inter-annual climate as a dominant driver of year-to-year variability. Integrating future climate projections suggests that a 2 °C global warming level could increase fire-driven C emissions in peatlands by over 60% solely via increased burn depths. Our findings are likely a bellwether for other temperate peatlands where climate change is leading to drier conditions, which increase burn depths and C emissions.

  PublisherDOI

• Global-scale shifts in marine ecological stoichiometry over the past 50 years

  Nature Geoscience · 2025-07-03 · 11 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert B. Jackson

  Stanford University

  36 shared

• Peter B. Reich

  University of Minnesota

  33 shared

• Corli Coetsee

  Scientific Services

  26 shared

• U. Narayan Bhat

  University of California, Merced

  19 shared

• Anthony C. Caprio

  California Department of Parks and Recreation

  19 shared

• Sarah E. Hobbie

  University of Minnesota

  16 shared

• Katerina Georgiou

  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  14 shared

• Laurent Hébert‐Dufresne

  University of Vermont

  13 shared

Labs

• Pellegrini Fire Ecology LabPI

  The Pellegrini lab is committed to providing a healthy working environment that promotes creativity, hard work, and balance with life commitments. We are a diverse group and have a lot of fun.

Education

• PhD, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

  Princeton University

  2016