Wildfires strongly influence forest ecosystem processes, including carbon and nutrient cycling, and vegetation dynamics. As fire activity increases under changing climate conditions, the ecological and biogeochemical resilience of many forest ecosystems remains unknown. To investigate the resilience of forest ecosystems to changing climate and wildfire activity over decades to millennia, we developed a 4800‐year high‐resolution lake‐sediment record from Silver Lake, Montana, USA (47.360° N, 115.566° W). Charcoal particles, pollen grains, element concentrations and stable isotopes of C and N serve as proxies of past changes in fire, vegetation and ecosystem processes such as nitrogen cycling and soil erosion, within a small subalpine forest watershed. A published lake‐level history from Silver Lake provides a local record of palaeohydrology. A trend towards increased effective moisture over the late Holocene coincided with a distinct shift in the pollen assemblage c. 1900 yr BP, resulting from increased subalpine conifer abundance. Fire activity, inferred from peaks in macroscopic charcoal, decreased significantly after 1900 yr BP, from one fire event every 126 yr (83–184 yr, 95% CI) from 4800 to 1900 yr BP, to one event every 223 yr (175–280 yr) from 1900 yr BP to present. Across the record, individual fire events were followed by two distinct decadal‐scale biogeochemical responses, reflecting differences in ecosystem impacts of fires on watershed processes. These distinct biogeochemical responses were interpreted as reflecting fire severity, highlighting (i) erosion, likely from large or high‐severity fires, and (ii) nutrient transfers and enhanced within‐lake productivity, likely from lower severity or patchier fires. Biogeochemical and vegetation proxies returned to pre‐fire values within decades regardless of the nature of fire effects.
Boreal forest and tundra biomes are key components of the Earth system because the mobilization of large carbon stocks and changes in energy balance could act as positive feedbacks to ongoing climate change. In Alaska, wildfire is a primary driver of ecosystem structure and function, and a key mechanism coupling high‐latitude ecosystems to global climate. Paleoecological records reveal sensitivity of fire regimes to climatic and vegetation change over centennial–millennial time scales, highlighting increased burning concurrent with warming or elevated landscape flammability. To quantify spatiotemporal patterns in fire‐regime variability, we synthesized 27 published sediment‐charcoal records from four Alaskan ecoregions, and compared patterns to paleoclimate and paleovegetation records. Biomass burning and fire frequency increased significantly in boreal forest ecoregions with the expansion of black spruce, ca. 6,000–4,000 years before present (yr BP). Biomass burning also increased during warm periods, particularly in the Yukon Flats ecoregion from ca. 1,000 to 500 yr BP. Increases in biomass burning concurrent with constant fire return intervals suggest increases in average fire severity (i.e., more biomass burning per fire) during warm periods. Results also indicate increases in biomass burning over the last century across much of Alaska that exceed Holocene maxima, providing important context for ongoing change. Our analysis documents the sensitivity of fire activity to broad‐scale environmental change, including climate warming and biome‐scale shifts in vegetation. The lack of widespread, prolonged fire synchrony suggests regional heterogeneity limited simultaneous fire‐regime change across our study areas during the Holocene. This finding implies broad‐scale resilience of the boreal forest to extensive fire activity, but does not preclude novel responses to 21st‐century changes. If projected increases in fire activity over the 21st century are realized, they would be unprecedented in the context of the last 8,000 yr or more.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1606351
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10453194
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecology
- Volume:
- 101
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 0012-9658
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Aim Ecological properties governed by threshold relationships can exhibit heightened sensitivity to climate, creating an inherent source of uncertainty when anticipating future change. We investigated the impact of threshold relationships on our ability to project ecological change outside the observational record (e.g., the 21st century), using the challenge of predicting late‐Holocene fire regimes in boreal forest and tundra ecosystems.
<bold>Location</bold> Boreal forest and tundra ecosystems of Alaska.
<bold>Time period</bold> 850–2100 CE.
<bold>Major taxa studied</bold> Not applicable.
Methods We informed a set of published statistical models, designed to predict the 30‐year probability of fire occurrence based on climatological normals, with downscaled global climate model data for 850–1850 CE. To evaluate model performance outside the observational record and the implications of threshold relationships, we compared modelled estimates with mean fire return intervals estimated from 29 published lake‐sediment palaeofire reconstructions. To place our results in the context of future change, we evaluate changes in the location of threshold to burning under 21st‐century climate projections.
Results Model–palaeodata comparisons highlight spatially varying accuracy across boreal forest and tundra regions, with variability strongly related to the summer temperature threshold to burning: sites closer to this threshold exhibited larger prediction errors than sites further away from this threshold. Modifying the modern (i.e., 1950–2009) fire–climate relationship also resulted in significant changes in modelled estimates. Under 21st‐century climate projections, increasing proportions of Alaskan tundra and boreal forest will approach and surpass the temperature threshold to burning, with > 50% exceeding this threshold by > 2 °C by 2070–2099.
<bold>Main conclusions</bold> Our results highlight a high sensitivity of statistical projections to changing threshold relationships and data uncertainty, implying that projections of future ecosystem change in threshold‐governed ecosystems will be accompanied by notable uncertainty. This work also suggests that ecological responses to climate change will exhibit high spatio‐temporal variability as different regions approach and surpass climatic thresholds over the 21st century.
