Palaeoecological records as a guide for fire management in Killarney National Park,Ireland

Climate change is allowing fire to expand into previously unburnt ecosystems and regions. While management policies such as fire suppression have significantly altered their frequency and intensity. To prevent future biodiversity/ecosystem services loss, and the large financial burden of wildfires, management plans will be required to adapt to future climate and land use changes. Long-term ecological data offer a unique perspective to assess fire variability under different climate and land-use conditions. In this study, we focus on Killarney National Park, Ireland. An area which today is under threat from an increase in fire activity. Comparing palaeoecological and archaeological records, we reconstruct the past fire dynamic and its impact on the landscape, and evaluate the role of climate vs humans in influencing the natural fire regime over the millennial time-scale. Our results indicate that fire has been present in the landscape since the beginning of the Holocene, with fire in the early Holocene being largely controlled by climate and microsite conditions, and in the late Holocene being increasingly influenced by human activity. The knowledge of past fire regimes can help inform future management in order to protect the semi-natural native woodland. The park's present landscape mosaic, could be preserved by limiting forest encroachment through moderate grazing and burning, while also protecting any fragmented forest from excessive grazing and large/intense fires, via traditional fire management strategies such as fuel load management. However, a fire management strategy should only be implemented following careful consideration of all ecosystem factors and controls.     

我国古环境中炭屑的研究现状与展望

炭屑是恢复古火灾的一个重要手段,同时也为认识古气候、古植被和古地理提供了重要途径.从炭屑研究方法和应用两个方面总结了国内近年来炭屑研究的进展,提出了炭屑研究中尚需解决的问题,展望未来研究的前景.炭屑的分析方法和现代过程研究可能是今后研究中急需解决的问题,这两个问题的解决可以使炭屑在古环境和人类活动研究中充分发挥其作用....     

Using fire regimes to delineate zones in a high-resolution lake sediment record from the western United States

Paleoenvironmental reconstructions are important for understanding the influence of long-term climate variability on ecosystems and landscape disturbance dynamics. In this paper we explore the linkages among past climate, vegetation, and fire regimes using a high-resolution pollen and charcoal reconstruction from Morris Pond located on the Markagunt Plateau in southwestern Utah, USA. A regime shift detection algorithm was applied to background charcoal accumulation to define where statistically significant shifts in fire regimes occurred. The early Holocene was characterized by greater amounts of summer precipitation and less winter precipitation than modern. Ample forest fuel and warm summer temperatures allowed for large fires to occur. The middle Holocene was a transitional period between vegetation conditions and fire disturbance. The late Holocene climate is characterized as cool and wet reflecting an increase in snow cover, which reduced opportunities for fire despite increased availability of fuels. Similarities between modern forest fuel availability and those of the early Holocene suggest that warmer summers projected for the 21st century may yield substantial increases in the recurrence and ecological impacts of fire when compared to the fire regime of the last millennium.     

Vegetation,fire, and climate history of the northwestern Great Basin during the last 14,000 years

The northwestern Great Basin lies in the transition zone between the mesic Pacific Northwest and xeric intermountain West. The paleoenvironmental history based on pollen, macroscopic charcoal, and plant macrofossils from three sites in the northwestern Great Basin was examined to understand the relationships among the modern vegetation, fire disturbance and climate. The vegetation history suggests that steppe and open forest communities were present at high elevations from ca 11,000 to 7000 cal yr BP, and were replaced by forests composed of white fir, western white pine, and whitebark pine in the late Holocene. Over the last 11,000 years, fires were more frequent in mid-elevation forests (10–25 fire episodes/1000 years) and rare in high-elevation forests (2–5 fire episodes/1000 years). Applying modern pollen–climate relationships to the fossil pollen spectra provided a means to interpret past climate changes in this region. In the past 9000 years summer temperatures decreased from 1 to 4 °C, and annual precipitation has increased 7–15%. These results indicate that the millennial-scale climate forcing driving vegetation changes can be quantified within the intermountain West in general and northwestern Great Basin in particular. In addition, fire can be considered an important component of these ecosystems, but it does not appear to be a forcing mechanism for vegetation change at the resolution of these records.     

海洋生物地球化学模式研究进展

海洋生物地球化学模式是定量认识物质的海洋生物地球化学循环、理解其控制机制以及预测体系变动的重要手段。20世纪90年代以来,该研究领域的进展主要体现在海洋生物地球化学循环的物理输送和生态动力学过程以及年际、年代际变动的模拟3个方面。物理过程模拟方面的进展,集中在寡营养海区上层海水营养盐的供应机制问题上,在经典的上升流、垂直扩散之外,提出涡旋可能构成一种重要的物理输入过程。而生态动力学过程的模拟方面,90年代前期考虑食物网基本结构,由浮游植物、浮游动物和细菌三大类群构成生物状态变量,氮和磷营养盐以及颗粒碎屑构成其他状态变量;90年代后期,开始引入铁和硅的限制问题,考虑不同浮游植物和浮游动物群落结构的影响,特别是浮游植物粒级结构变化的预测可能是未来该领域力图解决的一个技术问题。年际变化的模拟,多围绕ENSO事件对初级生产的影响及其机制问题展开;年代际和地质年代尺度的体系变动问题仍存在争论,相对缺乏有效的数值模拟研究。该研究领域未来应加强生物—化学过程的函数表达、物理模式、中尺度过程、边界交换以及资料获取技术等方面的研究,以应对目前面临的诸多问题与挑战。     

Active fire monitoring and fire danger potential detection from space: A review

Wildland fire is both one of the major natural hazards and a natural process for ecosystem persistence. Accurate assessment of fire danger potential and timely detection of active fires are critical for fire fighting and fuel management. Space-borne measurements have become the primary approaches for these efforts. Many research works have been conducted and some data products have been generated for practical applications. This paper presents a review of the major sensors and algorithms for active fire monitoring and fire danger potential detection from space. Major sensors and their characteristics, physical principles of the major algorithms are summarized. Limitations of these algorithms and future improvements are also discussed.     

Local versus regional processes: can soil characteristics overcome climate and fire regimes by modifying vegetation trajectories?

We analysed charcoal and pollen from sediments obtained from two lakes in the northwestern mixed‐wood Canadian boreal forest in order to reconstruct fire‐return intervals and vegetation dynamics over the last 8000 years. Sites were selected with contrasting soil properties (mesic versus dry‐sandy soils), allowing an estimation of the potential influence of soils on long‐term vegetation and fire dynamics. The sites likely experienced fewer fires during the period extending from 8000 to 4000 cal. a BP than over the last 4000 years. At both sites, eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) populations were most extensive shortly after deglaciation, with vegetation later shifting towards mixed woodlands with less P. strobus and more extensive Picea and Pinus banksiana populations. This gradual vegetation shift was probably induced by the establishment of colder and moister conditions along with a fire‐regime change. In spite of the parallel long‐term vegetation trajectories, vegetation composition differed between the two sites in both the past and present. Whereas Picea was more abundant at the mesic site, the fire‐adapted P. banksiana populations were more extensive at the sandy‐soil site. These differences in vegetation composition indicate that, in addition to climate changes and fire occurrence, soil properties also influenced vegetation dynamics. A likely increase in fire frequency in the Canadian boreal forest during the 21st century might therefore favour the expansion of these two disturbance‐adapted trees with spatial heterogeneity in the populations due to varying soil types. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fire in the virgin forests of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area,Minnesota

Fire largely determined the composition and structure of the presettlement vegetation of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area as well as the vegetation mosaic on the landscape and the habitat patterns for wildlife. It also influenced nutrient cycles, and energy pathways, and helped maintain the diversity, productivity, and long-term stability of the ecosystem. Thus the whole ecosystem was fire-dependent.At least some overstory elements in virtually all forest stands still date from regeneration that followed one or more fires since 1595 A.D. The average interval between significant fire years was about 4 yr in presettlement times, but shortened to 2 yr from 1868 to 1910 during settlement. However, 83% of the area burned before the beginning of suppression programs resulted from just nine fire periods: 1894, 1875, 1863–1964, 1824, 1801, 1755–1959, 1727, 1692, 1681. The average interval between these major fire years was 26 yr. Most present virgin forests date from regeneration that followed fires in these years. Significant areas were also regenerated by fires in 1903, 1910, 1936, and 1971. Most major fire years occurred during prolonged summer droughts of subcontinental extent, such as those of 1864, 1910, and 1936. Many fires were man-caused, but lightning ignitions were also common. Lightning alone is probably a sufficient source of ignitions to guarantee that older stands burned before attaining climax. Dry matter accumulations, spruce budworm outbreaks, blowdowns, and other interactions related to time since fire increase the probability that old stands will burn. Vegetation patterns on the landscape were influenced by such natural firebreaks as lakes, streams, wetlands, and moist slopes. Red and white pine are most common on islands, and to the east, northeast, or southeast of such firebreaks. Jack pine, aspen-birch, and sprout hardwood forests are most common on large uplands distant from or west of such firebreaks.A Natural Fire Rotation of about 100 yr prevailed in presettlement times, but many red and white pine stands remained largely intact for 150–350 yr, and some jack pine and aspen-birch forests probably burned at intervals of 50 yr or less. There is paleoecological evidence that fire was an ecosystem factor before European man arrived, and even before early man migrated to North America. Probably few areas ever attained the postulated fir-spruce-cedar-birch climax in postglacial times. To understand the dynamics of fire-dependent ecosystems fire must be studied as an integral part of the system. The search for stable communities that might develop without fire is futile and avoids the real challenge of understanding nature on her own terms.To restore the natural ecosystem of the Canoe Area fire should soon be reintroduced through a program of prescribed fires and monitored lightning fires. Failing this, major unnatural, perhaps unpredictable, changes in the ecosystem will occur.     

The influence of fine‐scale topography on the impacts of Holocene fire in a Tasmanian montane landscape

Tasmania's montane temperate rainforests contain some of Australia's most ancient and endemic flora. Recent landscape‐scale fires have impacted a significant portion of these rainforest ecosystems. The complex and rugged topography of Tasmania results in a highly variable influence of fire across the landscape, rendering predictions of ecosystem response to fire difficult. We assess the role of topographic variation in buffering the influence of fire in these endemic rainforest communities. We developed a new 14 000‐year (14‐ka) palaeoecological dataset from Lake Perry, southern Tasmania, and compared it to neighbouring Lake Osborne (<250 m distant) to examine how topographic variations influence fire and vegetation dynamics through time. Repeated fire events during the Holocene cause a decline in montane rainforest taxa at both sites; however, in the absence of fire, rainforest taxa are able to recover. Montane temperate rainforest taxa persisted at Lake Perry until European settlement, whilst these taxa were driven locally extinct and replaced by Eucalyptus species at Lake Osborne after 2.5 ka. Contiguous topographic fire refugia within the Lake Perry catchment probably provided areas of favourable microclimates that discouraged fire spread and supported the recovery of these montane temperate rainforests. Copyright © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between fire behaviour measures and community loss: an exploratory analysis for developing a bushfire severity scale

Current fire danger scales do not adequately reflect the potential destructive force of a bushfire in Australia and, therefore, do not provide fire prone communities with an adequate warning for the potential loss of human life and property. To determine options for developing a bushfire severity scale based on community impact and whether a link exists between the energy release rate (power) of a fire and community loss, this paper reviewed observations of 79 wildfires (from 1939 to 2009) across Victoria and other southern states of Australia. A methodology for estimating fire power based on fuel loading, fire size and progression rate is presented. McArthur??s existing fire danger indices (FDIs) as well as fuel- and slope-adjusted FDIs were calculated using fire weather data. Analysis of possible relationships between fire power, FDIs, rate of spread and Byram??s fireline intensity and community loss was performed using exposure as a covariate. Preliminary results showed that a stronger relationship exists between community loss and the power of the fire than between loss and FDI, although fuel-adjusted FDI was also a good predictor of loss. The database developed for this study and the relationships established are essential for undertaking future studies that require observations of past fire behaviour and losses and also to form the basis of developing a new severity scale.     

Late Quaternary fire regimes of Australasia

We have compiled 223 sedimentary charcoal records from Australasia in order to examine the temporal and spatial variability of fire regimes during the Late Quaternary. While some of these records cover more than a full glacial cycle, here we focus on the last 70,000 years when the number of individual records in the compilation allows more robust conclusions. On orbital time scales, fire in Australasia predominantly reflects climate, with colder periods characterized by less and warmer intervals by more biomass burning. The composite record for the region also shows considerable millennial-scale variability during the last glacial interval (73.5–14.7 ka). Within the limits of the dating uncertainties of individual records, the variability shown by the composite charcoal record is more similar to the form, number and timing of Dansgaard–Oeschger cycles as observed in Greenland ice cores than to the variability expressed in the Antarctic ice-core record. The composite charcoal record suggests increased biomass burning in the Australasian region during Greenland Interstadials and reduced burning during Greenland Stadials. Millennial-scale variability is characteristic of the composite record of the sub-tropical high pressure belt during the past 21 ka, but the tropics show a somewhat simpler pattern of variability with major peaks in biomass burning around 15 ka and 8 ka. There is no distinct change in fire regime corresponding to the arrival of humans in Australia at 50 ± 10 ka and no correlation between archaeological evidence of increased human activity during the past 40 ka and the history of biomass burning. However, changes in biomass burning in the last 200 years may have been exacerbated or influenced by humans.     

火烧对湿地生态系统影响研究进展

火烧对湿地生态系统的影响是国内外火生态学和湿地生态系统研究中的一个热点。综述了国内外关于火烧对湿地生态系统各组成部分影响的研究进展,总结了湿地火烧的特点,火烧对湿地植物生长发育、群落特征的影响,火烧对土壤理化性质、对土壤中碳氮等元素形态及分布特征的影响。并针对目前湿地火烧在研究内容和方法上存在的问题,结合国外研究特点,提出了今后国内湿地火烧的研究展望。     

A comparison of forest fire indices for predicting fire risk in contrasting climates in China

The relationships between fire danger indices and fire risk have been extensively studied in many regions of the world. This work uses partial effect analysis in semiparametric logistic regression models to assess the nonlinear relationships among location, day, altitude, fire danger indices, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and fire ignition from 1996 to 2008 in four different climatic regions in China. The four regions are North China (NR), Northeast China (NE), Southeast China (SE), and Southwest China (SW). The three main results are as follows: First, different fire danger indices are selected as significant variables dependent on the region. The inter-regional difference could be partially explained by difference in local weather and vegetation conditions. Second, spatial location exerts highly significant effects in all four regions. NDVI values are selected as explained variable for NR, NE, and SE on fire ignitions. On a daily scale, altitude influences fire ignition for NR, SE, and SW. Third, the robustness of the probability models used in NE, SE, and SW is better than that in NR on a daily scale. The semiparametric logistic regression model used in this study is useful for assessing the ability of fire danger indices to estimate probabilities of fire ignition on a daily scale. This study encourages further research on assessing the predictive ability of fire danger indices developed at other temporal and spatial scales in China.     

A new Middle Pleistocene interglacial record from Denmark: Chronostratigraphic correlation,palaeovegetation and fire dynamics

Previously only three terrestrial interglacial periods were known from southern Scandinavia, all of which could be relatively easily correlated within the central European stratigraphical framework. Here, we present a new interglacial–interstadial pollen, plant macrofossil and charcoal record from Trelde Klint, Denmark, and analyse its biostratigraphy, correlation with other European records, vegetation development, fire dynamics and absolute dating. Except for a slight truncation of the early part of the record, the pollen stratigraphy exhibits a full interglacial succession, including temperate trees (Quercus, Ulmus and Tilia) during its mesocratic stage. Macrofossil analysis allowed identification to species level for Quercus robur, Picea abies and two mosses. Conifers (Pinus and Picea) dominate the pollen record of the interglacial sequence, and the occurrence of Larix pollen in the top part of the interglacial record as well as in the interstadial sediments is especially indicative of this interglacial. The overall diversity of tree genera is rather low. These biostratigraphical features suggest that Trelde Klint is unique among Danish records, but it is similar to records from northern Germany. Numerical analyses (REVEALS and DCA) indicate that forests during the temperate stage were dense and that vegetation openness increased only towards the end of the interglacial, accompanied by increased fire occurrence. A short interstadial sequence with a dominance of Pinus and Betula and the presence of Larix is present above the interglacial deposit. We argue that lack of attention to differences in fire regimes may hamper understanding of between‐site correlations of interglacial pollen records. OSL dating, using a novel feldspar technique, yields an average age of 350±20 ka for the sandy sediments above the interglacial layers at Trelde Klint, suggesting that the whole interglacial–interstadial succession belongs to Marine Isotope Stage 11.     

Climatic controls of Holocene fire patterns in southern South America

Holocene fire-climate-vegetation linkages are mostly understood at individual sites by comparing charcoal and pollen records with other paleoenvironmental proxy and model simulations. This scale of reconstruction often obscures detection of large-scale patterns in past fire activity that are related to changes in regional climate and vegetation. A network of 31 charcoal records from southern South America was examined to assess fire history along a transect from subtropic to subantarctic biomes. The charcoal data indicate that fire activity was greater than present at ca. 12,000 cal yr BP and increased further and was widespread at 9500 cal yr BP. Fire activity decreased and became more spatially variable by 6000 cal yr BP, and this trend continued to present. Atmospheric circulation anomalies during recent high-fire years show a southward shift in westerlies, and paleoclimate model simulations and data syntheses suggest that such conditions may have prevailed for millennia in the early Holocene when the pole-to-equator temperature gradients were weaker and annual temperatures were higher than present, in response to orbital-time-scale insolation changes.     

Consequences of past climate change for species engaged in obligatory interactions

Obligatory interactions between species are fundamental to ecosystem functioning and are expected to be particularly sensitive to climate change. Although the effect of past and current climate changes on individual species has been thoroughly investigated, their effect on obligatory interactions has been overlooked. In this review, we present predictions about the effects of climate change on obligatory interactions and illustrate these predictions with examples from the literature. We focus on abrupt past climate change, especially during the Quaternary, because knowing past responses is useful for understanding and predicting the response of organisms and ecosystems to the current climate change. We also pinpoint the need for better time calibration of demographic events from genetic data, and for more studies focused on particularly suitable biological models. We hope that this review will stimulate interaction between the earth sciences and the life sciences on this timely topic.     

Topography,climate and ice masses: a review

Topography acts as a filter between regional climate and the consequent response of a glacier or ice sheet. It influences the mass and energy inputs and modifies the ice dynamics. The evolution of the ice sheet surface and, over longer time scales, of the bed topography modulates the climatic forcing. Until we have a better understanding of these topographic linkages, the use of geophysical signals from former ice masses to determine palaeoclimates must be regarded as fundamentally flawed.     

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in lake sediments record historic fire events: Validation using HPLC-fluorescence detection

Understanding the natural mechanisms that control fire occurrence in terrigenous ecosystems requires long and continuous records of past fires. Proxies, such as sedimentary charcoal and tree-ring fire scars, have temporal or spatial limitations and do not directly detect fire intensity. We show in this study that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) produced during wildfires record local fire events and fire intensity. We demonstrate that high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detector (HPLC-FLD) is superior to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) for detecting the low concentrations of sedimentary PAHs derived from natural fires. The HPLC-FLD is at least twice as sensitive as the GC–MS in selective ion monitoring (SIM) mode for parent PAHs and five times as sensitive for retene. The annual samples extracted from varved sediments from Swamp Lake in Yosemite National Park, California are compared with the observational fire history record and show that PAH fluxes record fires within 0.5 km of the lake. The low molecular weight (LMW) PAHs (e.g., fluoranthene, pyrene and benz[a]anthracene) are the best recorders of fire, whereas the high molecular weight (HMW) PAHs likely record fire intensity. PAHs appear to resolve some of the issues inherent to other fire proxies, such as secondary deposition of charcoal. This study advances our understanding of how PAHs can be used as markers for fire events and poses new questions regarding the distribution of these compounds in the environment.     

Late Holocene vegetation and fire dynamics from a savanna-forest ecotone in Roraima state,northern Brazilian Amazon

Two sediment cores from Mauritia flexuosa palm swamps have been studied by pollen and charcoal analysis. The cores Fazenda Cigana (FC) and Terra Indígena Aningal (TIA) were taken from a savanna-forest ecotone area in the Roraima State, northern Brazilian Amazon. Based on 5 radiocarbon dates, these records allow the reconstruction of the vegetation fire and climate dynamics during the past 1550 years. At the FC site was recorded a higher proportion of forest cover, suggesting local wetter climatic conditions favorable for forest expansion, especially by gallery forests, between 1550 and 1400 cal yr BP. Stands of M. flexuosa started to establish on the site indicating sufficient soil moisture. From 1400 to 1050 cal yr BP, forest cover retreated while savanna, and the Mauritia palm swamp expanded considerably. The FC site was marked by savanna and Mauritia cover with a slight increase of forest between ca. 1050 and 900 cal yr BP. From 900 to 300 cal yr BP the savanna and palm swamp taxa became dominant and the forest area decreased. At the TIA site the savanna cover was dominant between 1200 and 1000 cal yr BP. From 1000 to 700 forest expanded while savanna and Mauritia palm swamp reduced. Between 700 and 300 cal yr BP savanna and Mauritia palm swamp increased and forest area decreased. The high amount of charred particles found in the sediments, indicate fires with a marked increase between 1400 to 1000 cal yr BP (FC site) and 700 to 300 cal yr BP (TIA site), and probably caused the retreat of forest cover during these two time intervals. The relatively lower fire activity after 300 cal yr BP until present-day favored the increase of forested area at both TIA and FC sites. The arrival of the European settler and the subsequent introduction of cattle, is suggested as the main reason for the decrease of fire in the study region. The results point the fire caused by indigenous people as the principal controlling factor for forest and savanna dynamics during the past 1550 years.