Frequent Burning Research Articles

The influence of fire mosaics on mammal occurrence in north-western Australia

BackgroundUnderstanding the relationship between fire and species habitat preferences is critical in an era of rapid environmental change. In northern Australia, large, intense, and frequent fires are thought to be a primary cause of mammal population declines, particularly through their influence on habitat suitability. Here, we used a large species presence database in combination with satellite-derived fire history data to assess the influence of fire attributes, including burn extent, frequency, and pyrodiversity, on the likelihood of occurrence of eight mammal species in north-west Western Australia.ResultsThe likelihood of occurrence declined for some species with an increasing proportion of recently burnt habitat and increased for most species with an increasing proportion of long unburnt habitat. The occurrence of six species was negatively correlated with increasing fire frequency, while the occurrence of four species was positively correlated with increasing pyrodiversity.ConclusionsOur results indicate that fire likely plays an important role in influencing mammal occurrence in the Pilbara and support previous research indicating that frequent large-scale burns have a mostly negative impact on small to medium-sized mammals in northern Australia. To improve mammal habitat suitability, land managers should aim to reduce the extent of large late dry season burns and increase the availability of mature spinifex grasslands.

Managing fire‐prone forests in a time of decreasing carbon carrying capacity

Changing climatic conditions are increasing overstory tree mortality in forests globally. This restructuring of the distribution of biomass is making already flammable forests more combustible, posing a major challenge for managing the transition to a lower biomass state. In western US dry conifer forests, tree density resulting from over a century of fire‐exclusion practices has increased the risk of high‐severity wildfire and susceptibility to climate‐driven mortality. Reducing dead fuel loads will require new approaches to mitigate risk to the remaining live trees by preparing forests to withstand future wildfire. Here, we used data from the Teakettle Experimental Forest in California to evaluate different prescribed fire burn frequencies and their impact on accumulated dead fuels after a 4‐year drought. Increasing burn frequency could reduce surface fuel build‐up but comes with additional challenges that will require creativity and experimentation to overcome.

Generation and Composition of Medical Waste in Lafia

Background: Effective management of medical waste is a prerequisite for efficient delivery of healthcare services, human health and environmental protection; and the availability of adequate data with regard to medical waste generation and composition is generally considered to be fundamental in the development of efficient medical waste management. However, in Lafia, the state capital of Nasarawa State, Nigeria and a rapidly developing town, there is inadequate information on the medical waste generation and composition. This study thus sets to evaluate the medical waste composition and generation in Lafia by direct observation during both rainy and dry seasons Methodology: The study involved the survey of a cross section of three (3) tertiary health institution. Findings: The study showed that there is significant variation in healthcare waste management practices and sustainability factors (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) (3Rs). The test showed that there prominent method of healthcare waste management at the studied institution was practice of incineration, pit burning and burying and frequency of waste disposal, leaving out other new and improved technologies for proper waste managements. This study aims to evaluate the medical waste generation and composition in Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria across public and private hospitals. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: It is anticipated that the outcome of this research will avail resourceful data that will be needed for effective hospital waste management and other planning and design works.

Long-term assessment of fire-induced carbon loss in Southeast Atlantic Forest

Fires threaten tropical forests such as Atlantic Forest in Brazil, compromising the ecosystem service of carbon stock. However, there is a literature gap regarding these studies in these ecosystems. Therefore, we conducted this analysis in different land use and land cover (LULC) classes, considering seasonality and topographic, hydrological, anthropogenic and fire variables correlations, during 2000-2020. The InVEST Carbon model was used, applied to carbon biomass pre-fire and pos-fire, based on field work and linear regression, weighted by pre- and post-fire NBR spectral index. The results, in 21 years, revealed a total loss after fire of 55.7GgC (43%), and of these, 79% is in old-growth Ombrophilous dense. In general, fire negatively impacts the carbon stock of native forests by an average of 38% (ranging from 19.9% to 69.1%, depending on phytophysiognomy and seasonality), Eucalyptus plantations by 87.1%, high-altitude grasslands by 79.5% and pasture in 90.4%. Burn frequency and severity as well as distance from rivers and roads were significantly correlated with carbon loss. A small portion of this biome has shown a high potential for fire-induced carbon loss, indicating a danger for the whole Atlantic Forest conservation and to international agreements commitments.

Reconceiving Domestic Burning Controls: Air Quality Alerts, Behavioural Responsive Regulation, and Designing for Compliance.

Domestic combustion emissions pose a growing risk to public health, especially in the UK. Existing responses are polarised, with government advocating use of lower emission fuels and stoves while clean air campaigners call for blanket bans on burning. However, each approach is limited in its ability to control these emissions. An alternative can be found in the U.S.A., where 'burn alert' systems require stove and fireplace users to avoid lighting during periods of actual or projected poor air quality. Given the effectiveness of these regimes, the current study designs and evaluates the effectiveness and acceptability of a burn alert system in the UK for the first time, drawing on the theoretical perspective of behavioural responsive regulation. Fifty participants were recruited to use the system over 2 weeks in winter. The findings illustrate that a voluntary burn alert system can dissuade burning among users. Of those in receipt of an alert, 74% reduced burning frequency or burned for a shorter duration. In total, the alert system prevented at least 178 hours of burning for this group. Qualitative findings show that the consistency of the behavioural response is influenced by technical, structural, and environmental factors, providing key insight into how UK-based burn alert systems could be modified to increase the consistency of compliance in future. The overall conclusion is that burn alerts could be introduced in the UK and beyond, as a means of reducing domestic combustion emissions and their associated public health risks.

Understanding Epidemiological Trends in Geriatric Burn Injuries: A National Multicenter Analysis from NEISS 2004-2022.

Burn injuries pose a significant source of patient morbidity/mortality and reconstructive challenges for burn surgeons, especially in vulnerable populations such as geriatric patients. Our study aims to provide new insights into burn epidemiology by analyzing the largest national, multicenter sample of geriatric patients to date. Utilizing the National Electronic Injury and Surveillance System (NEISS) database (2004-2022), individuals with a "Burn" diagnosis were extracted and divided into two comparison age groups of 18-64 and 65+. Variables including sex, race, affected body part, incident location, burn etiology, and clinical outcomes were assessed between the two groups utilizing two proportion z-tests. 60,581 adult patients who sustained burns were identified from the NEISS database with 6,630 of those patients categorized as geriatric (65+). Geriatric patients had a significantly greater frequency of scald burns (36.9% vs. 35.4%; p<0.01), and third degree/full-thickness burns (10.4% vs 5.5%, p<0.01) relative to non-geriatric adult patients with most of these burns occurring at home (75.9% vs 67.4%; p<0.01). The top five burn sites for geriatric patients were the hand, face, foot, lower arm, and lower leg and the top five burn injury sources were hot water, cookware, oven/ranges, home fires, and gasoline. Geriatric patients had over two times greater risk of hospital admission (OR: 2.32, 95% CI: 2.17-2.49, p<0.01) and over five times greater risk of ED mortality (OR: 6.22, 95% CI: 4.00-9.66, p<0.01) after incurring burn injuries. These results highlight the need for stronger awareness of preventative measures for geriatric burn injuries.

Burning Frequency Influences Plant Composition and Diversity and Mycorrhizal Spore Density in a Lateritic Dry Deciduous Sal Dominated Forest

Abstract: Burning in forest floor, specially, in deciduous forests is an annual practice of forest dwellers in some states of India to collect non timber forest produce at ease. Sometimes this springtime burning get out of control and damage the forest severely. Sal dominated mixed forest in Godapyasal range, Midnapore division, West Midnapore in south West Bengal, with different fire incidence histories was taken for the study. An intensive survey of sites with regular burning, occasional burning and no burning were done to study plant diversity and community composition and the results were compared within different sites. Severe burning regimes damaged the plant density drastically rendering the saplings of subdominants only near ground level as coppice. Mild fire frequencies, though not severely damaged plant community, differed from unburned area significantly. Fire hardy tree species are dominant and subdominant in both sites. In severe burned site, plant diversity increased with a number of invasive perennials and annuals and spiny undershrubs and show even distribution. Common plants in the three communities were observed to be affected in their community parameters with burning frequency. Frequent and occasional burning both reduced mycorrhizal population with larger spores drastically and not replaced even after nine months of burning. AMF with smaller spores are less affected.

MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN RAT SKIN AFTER THERMAL BURNS

Every day around the world, children and adults suffer from burn injuries. Burn injury is one of the global health problems due to its high prevalence and mortality. The skin is the largest multifunctional human organ. The area of the entire skin is on average 1.7-1.9 square meters. The skin has a wide variety of functions from protective to energy-saving and tactile. Burns have a long history, but new methods of study are needed, this is due to the increase in the frequency of burns in everyday life, production, as well as the complexity of the pathogenesis and treatment of burn disease. Pathological changes that occur in the body of burned animals lead to the fact that in the first hours with extensive burn injury, circulatory disorders occur in parenchymal organs, especially in the liver, lungs and adrenal glands. In the future, with severe intoxication, severe dystrophic processes occur in the muscles of the heart and other internal organs. Recently, the main areas of research into the pathogenesis of inflammation have become immunological, at the morphological level it has not been sufficiently studied. The article shows the morphological features of the study in thermal burns of the skin of rats during treatment with a different mechanism of action. Rats in the amount of 15 pieces were divided into 3 groups: the first control group with a burn without treatment, the second group with a thermal burn, to which levomekol gel was applied to the burn area, the third group was treated with powder from the medicinal plant yarrow Achillea millefolium L. On the 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 21st days, the rats were taken out of the experiment, after which the skin pieces were fixed in 10% formalin for further histological examination.

Spatial and physical characteristics of bison wallows in the Flint Hills of Kansas

AbstractBison have long been considered a keystone species of North American prairies, increasing plant and animal diversity through a number of unique behaviors. One such behavior is wallowing, in which the repeated rolling of bison in the same spot leads to the formation of small, shallow, oval depressions called wallows. The objective of this study was to characterize spatial and physical attributes of bison wallows at the Konza Prairie Biological Station, a tallgrass prairie preserve in northeastern Kansas. We used aerial imagery from two different years (2011 and 2019) to assess the abundance and spatial distribution of these wallows in relation to fire frequency, elevation, and slope. We also recorded physical characteristics (2020) for a randomly selected subset of wallows and analyzed these data in relation to the same landscape features. Results from the analysis of the aerial images indicated that wallows were more abundant in areas characterized by combinations of more frequent burning, higher elevations, and little or no slope. In the 2020 physical measurements, we found that wallows were smaller in areas burned more often and shallower at higher elevations, particularly when located on grazing lawns. Terrestrial plants were found in approximately 72.1% of the wallows that were physically sampled, and their prevalence increased with increasing slope. We found some quantity of aquatic plants in approximately 7.1% of the sampled wallows. The probability of finding aquatic vegetation in wallows was higher on grazing lawns and in areas burned less frequently, particularly every 20 years. This study enhances the understanding of the distribution of wallows and their physical characteristics as a type of disturbance that could alter relationships within grassland communities.

Importance of methodological pluralism in deriving counterfactuals for evidence-based conservation.

Most protected area impact research that uses counterfactuals draws heavily on quantitative methods, data, and knowledge types, making it valuable in producing generalizations but limited in temporal scope, historical detail, and habitat diversity and coverage of ecosystem services. We devised a methodological pluralistic approach, which supports social science qualitative methods, narratives, mixed methods, and interdisciplinarity, to fully unlock the potential of counterfactuals in ensuring a place-based and detailed understanding of the socioecological context and impacts of protected areas. We applied this approach to derive possible counterfactual conditions for the impact of a montane protected area on 40years of vegetation change in the Cape Floristic Region-a global biodiversity hotspot and UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa. We incorporated diverse methods, knowledge, and information sources, drawing on before-after protected area comparisons for inside and outside the protected area. A significant increase in shrubland vegetation (17-30%) was observed and attributed primarily to a decline in frequent burning for grazing. This also occurred outside the protected area and was driven by socioeconomic drivers and not by concerns over biodiversity conservation or land degradation. Had the protected area not been established the area would have seen intensification of cultivation and increased road networks, buildings, and water storage in dams. Our approach increased historical temporal coverage of socioecological change and contextualized assumptions around causality. Protected area impact evaluation should reengage in place-based research that fully incorporates pluralism in methodologies for constructing counterfactuals in a way that builds regional and global understanding from the local level upward. We devised 10 key principles for deriving counterfactuals grounded in methodological pluralism, covering aspects of collaboration, cocreation, inter- and transdisciplinarity, diverse values and lived experiences, multiple knowledge types, multiple possible causal mechanisms, social science qualitative methods, perceptions, perspectives, and narratives.

Modeling population dynamics of invasive pines to optimize their control in native grasslands of Argentina

The spread of invasive alien species over natural environments has become one of the most serious threats to biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the population attributes that allow a given species to become invasive is crucial for improving prevention and control interventions. Pampas grasslands are particularly sensitive to the invasion of exotic woody plants. In particular, the Ventania Mountains undergo the advance of alien woody plants; among which the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) stands out due to the extension of the area it covers and the magnitude of the ecological changes associated to its presence. Using a model that describes the population dynamics of the species in the area, we evaluated the expected behavior of the population under different environmental conditions and different management scenarios. When the effect of stochastic fires was simulated, the growth rate was greater than 1 for all the frequencies considered, peaking under fires every nine years, on average. When evaluating the effect of periodic mechanical control of the adult population, the reduction in growth rate was insufficient, except for cutting intensities that significantly exceeded the current operational capacity of the area. Under prescribed fire scenarios, on the other hand, burning frequencies greater than seven years resulted in population reductions. The results highlight the importance of fire in regulating the population of P. halepensis in the Ventania Mountains, with contrasting effects depending on the frequency with which it occurs, which allows considering it as an effective environmental management option for the control of the species.

Frequent burning and limited stand-replacing fire supports Mexican spotted owl pair occupancy

Changing fire regimes have the potential to threaten wildlife populations and communities. Understanding species’ responses to novel fire regimes is critical to formulating effective management and conservation strategies in an era of rapid change. Here, we examined the empirical effects of recent and historical wildfire activity on Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) populations in the southwestern United States. Using region-wide, standardized detection/non-detection data of Mexican spotted owl breeding pairs collected from 2015 to 2022, we found (i) higher rates of pair occupancy at sites that experienced more frequent fires in the three decades prior to the initiation of our study, and (ii) lower rates of local persistence at sites that experienced more extensive high-severity fire during the study. Historical fire regimes throughout much of our study area were characterized by high fire frequencies and limited high-severity components, indicating that Mexican spotted owls responded to wildfire in a manner consistent with their evolutionary environment. Management activities such as prescribed burning and mechanical thinning that aim to reduce stand-replacing fire risk and re-introduce the potential for frequent-fire regimes will likely benefit Mexican spotted owl conservation objectives, as well as promote more resilient forest landscapes.

Boreal forest cover was reduced in the mid-Holocene with warming and recurring wildfires

The hemi-boreal zone, marking North America’s southern boreal forest boundary, has evolved post-glaciation, hosting diverse ecosystems including mixed forests with savannas, grasslands, and wetlands. While human, climate, and fire interactions shape vegetation dynamics therein, specific influences remain unclear. Here we unveil 12,000 years of hemi-boreal zone dynamics, exploring wildfire, vegetation, climate, and human population size interactions at such long time scales. Postglacial biomass burning exhibited episodes of persistent elevated activity, and a pivotal shift around 7000 years ago saw the boreal forest transition to an oak-pine barren ecosystem for about 2000 years before reverting. This mid-Holocene shift occurred during a period of more frequent burning and a sudden uptick in mean annual temperatures. Population size of Indigenous peoples mirrored wildfire fluctuations, decreasing with more frequent burning. Anticipated increases of fire activity with climate change are expected to echo transformations observed 7000 years ago, reducing boreal forest extent, and impacting land use.

The Impacts of Burn Severity and Frequency on Erosion in Western Arnhem Land, Australia.

Wildfires are pivotal to the functioning of many ecosystems globally, including the magnitude of surface erosion rates. This study aims to investigate the relationships between surface erosion rates and wildfire intensity in the tropical north savanna of Australia. The occurrence of fires in western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia was determined with remotely sensed digital datasets as well as analogue erosion measurement methods. Analysis was performed using satellite imagery to quantify burn severity via a monthly delta normalised burn ratio (dNBR). This was compared and correlated against on-ground erosion measurements (erosion pins) for 13 years. The dNBR for each year (up to +0.4) displayed no relationship with subsequent erosion (up to ±4 mm of erosion/deposition per year). Poor correlation was attributed to low fire severity, patchy burning, significant time between fires and erosion-inducing rainfall. Other influences included surface roughness from disturbances from feral pigs and cyclone impacts. The findings here oppose many other studies that have found that fires increase surface erosion. This accentuates the unique ecosystem characteristics and fire regime properties found in the tropical Northern Territory. Scenarios of late dry season fires with high severity were not observed in this study and require more investigations. Ecosystems such as the one examined here require specialised management practices acknowledging the specific ecosystem functions and processes. The methods employed here combine both analogue and digital sensors to improve understandings of a unique environmental system.

Fire as a Factor in the Dynamics of Meadow Vegetation: A Model Experiment in Western Siberia

The state of meadow vegetation in areas with different ages of experimental spring burnout (from 1 to 12 years ago) was studied in the Tomsk region for 3 years. On experimental plots of 1 m2 and 100 m2 (small- and middle-scale levels, respectively), the dynamics of species richness, total projective cover of vegetation, and aboveground phytomass reserves were characterized, and the structure of communities was analyzed. It was revealed that a single fire in the spring significantly reduces species richness for small-scale plots and increases the total projective cover for middle-scale plots. Structural differences from control plots can be traced from 1 to 4 years for different characteristics. The effects of fire are more prominent for small-scale plots. To suppress tree growth and maintain the existence of meadows, grass fires seem to be a less effective practice than mowing. At the same time, the results obtained potentially allow us to consider prescribed burning as a tool for maintaining the stability of meadow plant communities in the south of Western Siberia, preventing them from becoming overgrown with tree undergrowth, in cases with a controlled frequency of burning and the use of appropriate fire safety measures.

What did it used to look like? A case study from tall, wet mainland Mountain Ash forests prior to British invasion

AbstractThere has been extensive commentary about historical First Nations' land management in Australia, including in tall, wet forests, and therefore their condition at the time of the British invasion in 1788. Popular texts have interpreted records kept by early British invaders to argue that extensive areas of tall, wet forest were kept open through frequent burning by the First Peoples. However, these interpretations conflict with historical and ecological evidence, which is rarely acknowledged in public discourse. Here, we present evidence about what Victorian Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests were like at the time of the British invasion. We show that at the time of the British invasion, most areas of mainland Mountain Ash forests were likely to have been naturally dense and wet, with: (1) overstorey trees spaced relatively widely; and (2) an understorey consisting of a cool temperate rainforest mesic layer. Ecological and physiological evidence suggests that Mountain Ash forests evolved under conditions where high‐severity wildfire was comparatively rare, leading to patterns of landscape‐level cover dominated by relatively mature forests. This is broadly consistent with reports from the First Peoples, early historical accounts, paintings, and photographs. These forests were not open or park‐like, as may have been the case in some other Australian vegetation types. However, these forests were not wilderness, but places of significance to the First Peoples. Understanding forest structure at the time of the British invasion is critically important in establishing historical reference conditions for guiding appropriate restoration programmes, especially the reinstatement of traditional ecological knowledge, after long periods of post‐British invasion disturbance and degradation. Notably, the dense, wet understorey that characterizes Mountain Ash forests should be recognized as an inherent and entirely natural part of the ecological dynamics of this ecosystem, with approaches to thin, burn, or remove it highly likely to be counterproductive and have a range of detrimental environmental effects.

The large‐scale restoration of fire and water regimes in Everglades National Park reveal little change in plant diversity along an elevational gradient

Quantifying the response of plant diversity to large‐scale restoration is essential for measuring management success. One of the world's largest restoration efforts began in 2000 in the Everglades ecosystem in Florida, United States, through the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. In coordination with ongoing fire management, this restoration effort aims to restore natural hydrologic and fire regimes in this dynamic ecosystem. Restored water and fire regimes in the Everglades interact along an elevational gradient between seasonally inundated marl prairie and frequently burned pine rockland on Long Pine Key in Everglades National Park. To determine the impact of management on plant community richness and composition, we resampled transects spanning the elevational gradient between marl prairie and pine rockland initially sampled prior to the implementation of current restoration efforts (circa 1997–1999). We measured percent plant cover and developed generalized linear mixed models to determine the effects of fire frequency, average water depth, and elevation on plant species richness and composition across the two time periods. Additionally, we used species‐level random effects to examine how individual species respond to each environmental variable. We failed to detect any systematic shifts in plant composition in response to fire and water management. However, we found that complex interactions between fire and water structure plant composition and maximize species richness along gradients of water depth and elevation, with low, moderate, and high burn frequencies increasing richness in wet, moderately wet, and dry sites, respectively.

Combined effects of fire and drought are not sufficient to slow shrub encroachment in tallgrass prairie.

Woody encroachment-the spread of woody vegetation in open ecosystems-is a common threat to grasslands worldwide. Reversing encroachment can be exceedingly difficult once shrubs become established, particularly clonal species that resprout following disturbance. Single stressors are unlikely to reverse woody encroachment, but using multiple stressors in tandem could be successful in slowing or reversing encroachment. We explored whether increasing fire frequency in conjunction with multi-year drought could reduce growth and survival of encroaching shrubs in a tallgrass prairie in northeastern Kansas, USA. Passive rainout shelters (~ 50% rainfall reduction) were constructed over mature clonal shrubs (Cornus drummondii) and co-existing C4 grasses in two fire treatments (1-year and 4-year burn frequency). Leaf- and whole-plant level physiological responses to drought and fire frequency were monitored in shrubs and grasses from 2019 to 2022. Shrub biomass and stem density following fire were unaffected by five years of consecutive drought treatment, regardless of fire frequency. The drought treatment had more negative effects on grass leaf water potential and photosynthetic rates compared to shrubs. Shrub photosynthetic rates were remarkably stable across each growing season. Overall, we found that five consecutive years of moderate drought in combination with fire was not sufficient to reduce biomass production or stem density in an encroaching clonal shrub (C. drummondii). These results suggest that moderate but chronic press-drought events do not sufficiently stress encroaching clonal shrubs to negatively impact their resilience following fire events, even when fire frequency is high.

Delineating wildfire burns and regrowth using satellite imagery to assess moose (Alces alces) spatial responses to burns

AbstractClimate change is predicted to increase the frequency and size of wildfires. Wildfire burns can influence wildlife space use, but prior to understanding the relationship between wildlife and burns, the extent of wildfires and the regrowth of burned areas must be determined. We used remotely sensed, multispectral satellite imagery to calculate differenced normalized burn ratios (NBRs) to define areas burned by wildfire and assess temporal trends in burn frequency and extent in central British Columbia. We then used NBRs as an index of vegetation regrowth to model regrowth trajectories within burns. Next, we examined spatial responses to burns by a moose (Alces alces) population that recently declined in abundance. We utilized locations used by and available to collared moose to determine spatial responses as a function of years since wildfire and vegetation regrowth. We also assessed functional responses to burns by moose, dependent upon the proportion of burned areas available to each individual. We hypothesized that (h1) wildfire burns within our study area increased from 1985 to 2017, (h2) that moose increase their use of burns in comparison with availability as burns age as a result of vegetation regrowth, and (h3) that moose demonstrate functional responses to burns (i.e., selection of burns by individual moose declines as the amount of burned areas increases). We observed that the frequency and extent of burns are increasing within our study area. In contrast to h2, moose in summer and fall decreased the selection of burns as burns aged. We, however, observed that moose responded most positively to locations with intermediate vegetation regrowth (i.e., NBR values), which according to burn regrowth trajectories were most likely to be achieved 13 or more years post‐wildfire; given that most burns within our study area were ≤13 years of age, we predict that the use of burns will likely increase as vegetation regrows. Moose only selected for burns in fall, and we did not find support for the presence of a functional response. Our research demonstrated the utility of remotely sensed imagery and NBRs to define burn locations and to reveal current and probable future spatial responses to burns by a wildlife population of concern.

Millennial-scale variability of vegetation and fire activity in a northern Cerrado driven by an east-west rainfall gradient during the Holocene

This paleoecological study investigates vegetation variability and fire regimes in Northeastern Brazil (NEB)’s Cerrado. We present high-resolution pollen and charcoal records from a palm swamp located in a Cerrado in Chapada das Mesas National Park, in the southwest of Maranhão State. The Vereda do Dodó sedimentary core is 187 cm deep and covers the past 6000 years. Our results show first the presence of an open cerrado between 6000 and 5200 cal yr BP with no fire activity and a gradual expansion of the palm Mauritia and woody cerrado after 5000 cal yr BP. This is synchronous with other studies of northeastern and central Brazil. At c. 4300 cal yr BP, sterile samples suggest a strong dry event, also recorded in other eastern NEB records. Frequent burnings lasted until 2600 cal yr BP, when fires stopped and Mauritia, arboreal cerrado, and gallery forest taxa expanded under increased moisture rates. The increase of southern hemisphere summer insolation and the warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean enhanced the monsoon system over eastern Amazonia and western NEB in agreement with speleothem records. Our study reveals that northern Cerrado biodiversity was very sensitive to SASM dynamics, a different pattern from eastern NEB vegetation and climate.