Reconstruction of fire regimes through integrated paleoecological proxy data and ecological modeling.

Virginia Iglesias,Gabriel I Yospin,Cathy Whitlock

doi:10.3389/fpls.2014.00785

Abstract

Fire is a key ecological process affecting vegetation dynamics and land cover. The characteristic frequency, size, and intensity of fire are driven by interactions between top-down climate-driven and bottom-up fuel-related processes. Disentangling climatic from non-climatic drivers of past fire regimes is a grand challenge in Earth systems science, and a topic where both paleoecology and ecological modeling have made substantial contributions. In this manuscript, we (1) review the use of sedimentary charcoal as a fire proxy and the methods used in charcoal-based fire history reconstructions; (2) identify existing techniques for paleoecological modeling; and (3) evaluate opportunities for coupling of paleoecological and ecological modeling approaches to better understand the causes and consequences of past, present, and future fire activity.

Highlights

Fire has been an integral part of the Earth system for the past 350 million years (Scott and Glasspool, 2006)
We focus on sedimentary charcoal analysis and, in particular, the study of lake- and bog-sediment records, because it has become the most widely used approach for high-resolution reconstructions spanning millennia
DIRECTIONS The use of sedimentary charcoal as a fire proxy has increased markedly in recent years, as has interest in the role of biomass burning as a driver of and response to past environmental change

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Fire has been an integral part of the Earth system for the past 350 million years (Scott and Glasspool, 2006). Paleoecological studies offer information on long-term fire variability and its relationship with a broader array of environmental conditions than can be observed at present Such information is central to providing a context for modern and future fire activity and helping to identify the causes and consequences of fire at local-to-global scales. Recent studies exemplify integrative research that effectively combines both disciplines (Table 1; e.g., Ganopolski et al, 1998; Heiri et al, 2006; Bradshaw, 2008; Brubaker et al, 2009; Colombaroli et al, 2010; Henne et al, 2013; Brücher et al, 2014) These studies demonstrate the power of empirical paleoecological records to describe different components of past fire regimes, and the use of modeling approaches and data-model comparisons to offer broader inference of top-down drivers of past fire activity. Sediment cores are excellent repositories of paleofire information, and analysis of the charcoal, pollen, lithology, and geochemical components preserved in sediments is widely used to reconstruct www.frontiersin.org

Reconstruction of fire regimes

Findings

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS