Gopher Tortoise Burrows Create Fireproof Havens

Biological Strategy

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Maintain Biodiversity

The greater the amount of genetic and species variation in an ecosystem, the more resilient that ecosystem is to disturbances. Variation in ecosystems across the Earth also contributes to the Earth’s resilience to unpredictable changes. This variation is called biodiversity. Because living systems compete with each other for scarce resources, maintaining biodiversity involves creating conditions for a large variety of species to successfully co-occur and reproduce. For example, within a wetland, there are different vegetation types. This diversity results in a complex mosaic of microenvironments as the vegetation types alter air flows, light regimes, and water temperatures and chemistry. Because organisms vary in their ideal environmental conditions, these micro-environments increase the diversity of plants in the wetland. In turn, having a wetland in an otherwise dry area increases biodiversity at an even larger scale.

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Manage Disturbance in a Community

When environmental conditions change, they can disrupt an ecosystem’s equilibrium. Excessive rain can cause flooding and drought can cause forest fires. An ecosystem must be resilient to such disturbances. Disturbances are unpredictable in location, size, and intensity, so ecosystems must be able to regrow and must have a variety of duplicate forms, processes, or systems that are dispersed in location. For example, a forest ecosystem can recover from fire because diverse organisms play different roles in different ways and in different locations. Many organisms can resprout or grow from seeds triggered by fire, and their dispersed distribution ensures that an entire population isn’t decimated. Though the recovered ecosystem may look totally different from the pre-fire one, the ecosystem as a whole remains healthy.

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Cooperate Within an Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of organisms (plants, animals, and microbes) interacting with one another and the nonliving components of their environment (such as air, water, and mineral soil). This interaction can be passive or active, and can cooperatively enhance the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. For cooperation to contribute to maintaining communities within an ecosystem, it must be beneficial to at least some members of the community. Cooperation consists of symbiotic relationships, such as mutualism (in which two or more species in an ecosystem benefit) and commensalism (in which one species benefits and the effect on others is neutral). An example of a commensal relationship is that between bromeliad plants and trees: bromeliads live on trees without harming them. Bromeliads have mutualistic relationships with other species, including insects, frogs, and worms. The plants capture water in their base, forming a pond that these organisms join. The nutrients that these organisms excrete in their droppings nourish the bromeliad.

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Cooperate/Compete Between Different Species

From parasitism to mutualisms, there are endless interactions between organisms in nature. Interactions between species that lead to a negative outcome for one species are known as competition. Cooperation occurs when organisms work together for the benefit of each organism or species. While competition often occurs over resources or mates, the more biologists have begun to look for examples of cooperation in nature, the more they have found. For example, around 90% of plants have a beneficial partnership with fungi. Fungi provide the plant with nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, in exchange for sugars from the plant.

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Physically Assemble Structure

Living systems use physical materials to create structures to serve as protection, insulation, and other purposes. These structures can be internal (within or attached to the system itself), such as cell membranes, shells, and fur. They can also be external (detached), such as nests, burrows, cocoons, or webs. Because physical materials are limited and the energy required to gather and create new structures is costly, living systems must use both conservatively. Therefore, they optimize the structures’ size, weight, and density. For example, weaver birds use two types of vegetation to create their nests: strong, a few stiff fibers and numerous thin fibers. Combined, they make a strong, yet flexible, nest. An example of an internal structure is a bird’s bone. The bone is comprised of a mineral matrix assembled to create strong cross-supports and a tubular outer surface filled with air to minimize weight.

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Reptiles

Class Reptilia (“creeping”): Lizards, crocodiles, turtles, snakes

Reptiles retain some of the key characteristics that first enabled vertebrates to live permanently on land. They have dry skin covered in scales made of keratin that help prevent water loss. (Amphibians still need to stick close to water to keep their skin moist.) Many reptiles reproduce by laying eggs that are watertight and have a yolk, so eggs can develop on land while staying moist and nourished. Reptiles are also ectotherms, meaning they don’t produce their own body heat. This means they burn through energy much more slowly than “warm blooded” creatures of the same size. It also means that they need to keep warm to keep active, which is why you might see them spending a seemingly inordinate amount of time simply basking in the sun.

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In fire-prone pine ecosystems, gopher tortoises dig deep, stable burrows that protect themselves and dozens of other species from wildfire.

Introduction

Across the longleaf pine savannas and sandhill scrublands of the southeastern United States, the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) moves with slow purpose. But beneath its unhurried pace lies a hidden urgency: to dig. These tortoises carve out long, deep burrows––sometimes reaching 10 feet (3 meters) below ground and extending over 40 feet (12 meters) in length––that become lifelines in landscapes frequently swept by fire. In doing so, they offer a profound model of survival, not only for themselves but for the ecosystems they anchor.

The Strategy

The gopher tortoise is considered a “keystone species,” not for what it eats or how it travels, but for what it builds. Using its shovel-like forelimbs, it excavates burrows into sandy soil, creating subterranean tunnels that are remarkably resilient to fire, heat, and drought.

These burrows provide the tortoise with refuge, but more importantly, they offer shelter to more than 350 other species, including frogs, snakes, mice, beetles, and birds.

These underground structures maintain stable temperatures and humidity even during extreme surface conditions. When wildfires sweep through, they leave the burrows largely untouched, allowing animals to retreat and survive. This behavior initiates what researchers call a “burrowing cascade,” where a single digger reshapes the ecological fate of an entire community. In ecosystems where fire is not a disaster but a natural and necessary rhythm, the gopher tortoise has evolved to partner with flame through architecture.

Image: Donna Bollenbach / Shutterstock /

A gopher tortoise, Gopherus polyphemus, walking towards his burrow. The sturdy, shovel like legs of the Gopher tortoise are adapted for digging burrows up to 40 feet long and 10 feet deep.

Image: Paul Brennan / Shutterstock /

Gopher Tortoise burrowed in its mound.

Image: Lisa O'Lisa / Shutterstock /

Photo of a gopher tortoise hole with a gopher tortoise in the opening. Sandy path to hold and grassy ground above. The tortoise shell is visible as the tortoise is head down into the hold.

The Potential

Gopher tortoise burrows inspire us to think differently about community resilience and refuge in times of crisis. Their fire-resistant tunnels suggest ways that human infrastructure might incorporate shared, thermally buffered, and distributed shelters that can serve multiple users in emergencies––whether wildfires, heatwaves, or storms. Just as the tortoise unintentionally becomes a host for other life, we can design neighborhoods and cities that offer collective protection in the face of natural threats. By emulating this humble digger’s instinct for building safety into the land itself, we might learn how to shape places of refuge not only for ourselves, but for the many lives that move among us.

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