Holocene fire, vegetation, and climate dynamics inferred from charcoal and pollen record in the eastern Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Understanding fire history and its driving mechanisms can provide valuable insights into present fire regime (intensity, severity and frequency), the interplay between vegetation and fire, and trigger of fire activities. Here we reconstruct the Holocene fire history in the Zoige Basin on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, on the basis of sedimentary micro-charcoal record over the last 10.0ka (1ka=1000calyrBP) and discuss the influences of vegetation and climate on fire dynamics. Our results show that regional fire was active at 10.0–3.3ka and a significant decrease in fire activity characterized the period after 3.3ka. The high regional fire frequency at 10.0–3.3ka is consistent with the forested landscape suggested by high affinity scores of cool mixed forest biome (mainly consisted of spruce), implying that fire dynamics during this period was generally controlled by the variations of arboreal biomass and summer temperature. During 6.3–4.6ka the prevailing Asian summer monsoon provided increased moisture to this region and thus suppressed fire activities to an extent, despite the availability of abundant biomass. Declined tree biomass after 3.3ka probably accounted for the decreased fire activities. In addition, two successive fire events at ca. 3.5–3.3ka were likely responsible for the subsequent abrupt decline of forest components in the landscape.