Climatic thresholds shape northern high‐latitude fire regimes and imply vulnerability to future climate change

Boreal forests and arctic tundra cover 33% of global land area and store an estimated 50% of total soil carbon. Because wildfire is a key driver of terrestrial carbon cycling, increasing fire activity in these ecosystems would likely have global implications. To anticipate potential spatiotemporal variability in fire‐regime shifts, we modeled the spatially explicit 30‐yr probability of fire occurrence as a function of climate and landscape features (i.e. vegetation and topography) across Alaska. Boosted regression tree (BRT) models captured the spatial distribution of fire across boreal forest and tundra ecoregions (AUC from 0.63–0.78 and Pearson correlations between predicted and observed data from 0.54–0.71), highlighting summer temperature and annual moisture availability as the most influential controls of historical fire regimes. Modeled fire–climate relationships revealed distinct thresholds to fire occurrence, with a nonlinear increase in the probability of fire above an average July temperature of 13.4°C and below an annual moisture availability (i.e. P‐PET) of approximately 150 mm. To anticipate potential fire‐regime responses to 21st‐century climate change, we informed our BRTs with Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 climate projections under the RCP 6.0 scenario. Based on these projected climatic changes alone (i.e. not accounting for potential changes in vegetation), our results suggest an increasing probability of wildfire in Alaskan boreal forest and tundra ecosystems, but of varying magnitude across space and throughout the 21st century. Regions with historically low flammability, including tundra and the forest–tundra boundary, are particularly vulnerable to climatically induced changes in fire activity, with up to a fourfold increase in the 30‐yr probability of fire occurrence by 2100. Our results underscore the climatic potential for novel fire regimes to develop in these ecosystems, relative to the past 6000–35 000 yr, and spatial variability in the vulnerability of wildfire regimes and associated ecological processes to 21st‐century climate change.     

Drivers of fire occurrence in a mountainous Brazilian cerrado savanna: Tracking long-term fire regimes using remote sensing

Fire is a natural disturbance in savannas, and defines vegetation physiognomy and structure, often influencing species diversity. Fire activity is determined by a wide range of factors, including long and short term climatic conditions, climate seasonality, wind speed and direction, topography, and fuel biomass. In Brazil, fire shapes the structure and composition of cerrado savannas, and the impact of fire on vegetation dynamics is well explored, but the drivers of variation in fire disturbance across landscapes and over time are still poorly understood. We reconstructed 31 years of fire occurrence history in the Serra do Cipó region, a highly-diverse cerrado landscape, located in the southern portion of the Espinhaço mountain range, state of Minas Gerais, Southeastern Brazil. We mapped burn scars using a time series of Landsat satellite images from 1984 to 2014. Our questions were 1) How does fire occurrence vary in time and space across the Serra do Cipó cerrado landscape? 2) Which climatic drivers may explain the spatial and inter-annual variation in fire occurrence on this landscape? 3) Is fire occurrence in this cerrado landscape moisture-limited or fuel-limited? We evaluated the inter-annual variation and distribution of burned areas, and used linear models to explain this variation in terms of rainfall amount (determinant of fuel load production), seasonal rainfall distribution (determinant of dry fuel availability), abnormality of precipitation (Standardized Precipitation Index – SPI), and vegetation type (Enhanced Vegetation Index – EVI). Contrary to our expectations, annual rainfall volume was weakly and negatively correlated with burned area, and the strongest predictor of burned area was drought during the ignition season. The length of the dry season and the distribution of rain along the season determined ignition probability, increasing fire occurrence during the driest periods. We conclude that the mountain cerrado vegetation at Serra do Cipó has a moisture-dependent fire regime, in contrast to the fuel-dependent fire regimes described for African savannas. These findings imply that savannas at different continents may have different recovery and resilience capabilities when subjected to changes in the fire regime, caused by direct anthropogenic activities or indirectly through climatic changes. The possible effects of these changes on cerrado landscapes are still unknown, and future studies should investigate if currently observed fire regimes have positive or negative impacts on vegetation diversity, recovery, resilience and phenology, thus helping managers to include fire management as conservation measure.     

Abrupt Climate-Independent Fire Regime Changes

Wildfires have played a determining role in distribution, composition and structure of many ecosystems worldwide and climatic changes are widely considered to be a major driver of future fire regime changes. However, forecasting future climatic change induced impacts on fire regimes will require a clearer understanding of other drivers of abrupt fire regime changes. Here, we focus on evidence from different environmental and temporal settings of fire regimes changes that are not directly attributed to climatic changes. We review key cases of these abrupt fire regime changes at different spatial and temporal scales, including those directly driven (i) by fauna, (ii) by invasive plant species, and (iii) by socio-economic and policy changes. All these drivers might generate non-linear effects of landscape changes in fuel structure; that is, they generate fuel changes that can cross thresholds of landscape continuity, and thus drastically change fire activity. Although climatic changes might contribute to some of these changes, there are also many instances that are not primarily linked to climatic shifts. Understanding the mechanism driving fire regime changes should contribute to our ability to better assess future fire regimes.     

Spatial patterns and drivers of fire occurrence and its future trend under climate change in a boreal forest of Northeast China

Understanding the spatial patterns of fire occurrence and its response to climate change is vital to fire risk mitigation and vegetation management. Focusing on boreal forests in Northeast China, we used spatial point pattern analysis to model fire occurrence reported from 1965 to 2009. Our objectives were to quantitate the relative importance of biotic, abiotic, and human influences on patterns of fire occurrence and to map the spatial distribution of fire occurrence density (number of fires occurring over a given area and time period) under current and future climate conditions. Our results showed human‐caused fires were strongly related to human activities (e.g. landscape accessibility), including proximity to settlements and roads. In contrast, fuel moisture and vegetation type were the most important controlling factors on the spatial pattern of lightning fires. Both current and future projected spatial distributions of the overall (human‐ + lightning‐caused) fire occurrence density were strongly clustered along linear components of human infrastructure. Our results demonstrated that the predicted change in overall fire occurrence density is positively related to the degree of temperature and precipitation change, although the spatial pattern of change is expected to vary spatially according to proximity to human ignition sources, and in a manner inconsistent with predicted climate change. Compared to the current overall fire occurrence density (median value: 0.36 fires per 1000 km² per year), the overall fire occurrence density is projected to increase by 30% under the CGCM3 B1 scenario and by 230% under HadCM3 A2 scenario in 2081–2100, respectively. Our results suggest that climate change effects may not outweigh the effects of human influence on overall fire occurrence over the next century in this cultural landscape. Accurate forecasts of future fire‐climate relationships should account for anthropogenic influences on fire ignition density, such as roads and proximity to settlements.     

呼中林区火烧点格局分析及影响因素

林火是森林生态系统景观格局、动态和生态过程的重要自然驱动力,理解林火发生空间格局与影响因素对于林火安全管理具有重要的作用。采用点格局分析方法,以黑龙江大兴安岭呼中林区1990-2005年火烧数据为研究案例,分析了火烧点空间格局及其影响因素。结果表明,火烧点在空间上的分布是不均匀的,呈现聚集分布,存在一些火烧高发区和低发区。呼中林区火烧概率是0.004-0.012次/(km² · a),平均火烧概率为0.0077次/(km² · a)。人类活动因子、地形因子和植被因子对林火的发生均具有重要作用。应用空间点格局分析方法表明,距离居民点和道路的距离、高程、坡度和林型是影响林火发生的显著因子。因此在进行森林防火管理时,仅仅通过控制人类活动对于降低林火火险的效果是有限的,地形和林型也是林火防控时重点要考虑的因素。     

树木年轮火历史研究进展

树木年轮火灾学作为树木年轮学和林火生态学的一个重要交叉学科, 主要利用树轮火疤准确确定火灾发生年代, 从而研究过去和现在的火灾变化规律。树轮火灾学以其定年准确、分辨率高和时间久远等特点在森林火灾研究中具有极其重要的作用。该文对树木年轮火历史国内外 研究现状进行了简要评述, 国内树木年轮火历史研究尚处在起步阶段, 国外树木年轮火历史研究主要集中在以下几个方面:1) 火历史的时空格局特征, 主要包括林火发生的时间间隔、空间范围、强度、林火发生的时空关联、林火发生与立地条件的关系、林火发生与物种演替以及树轮火疤与其他方法相结合的火灾判 断等内容;2) 火灾历史与全球气候变化的关系, 主要包括火灾与温度和降水关系, 如一般在当年干旱而前几年相对湿润时火灾发生;火灾发生与大尺度气候事件也有一定的关联, 火灾一般发生在厄尔尼诺 (ElNiño) 向拉尼娜 (LaNiña) 转换的年代, 而且相位组合比单个事件更容易引发火灾;3) 火历史与人为活动及土地利用的关系, 战争和人口增加容易引发火灾, 而放牧活动却降低火灾发生频率, 20世纪以来的森林火抑制降低了火灾发生频率却增加了大火发生的可能性。最后对树木年轮火历史的未来进行了展望, 主要包括火灾时空格局的尺度效应、火历史变化的气候与人为驱动机制以及火历史研究方法的拓展等内容。     

Wildfire refugia in forests: Severe fire weather and drought mute the influence of topography and fuel age

Wildfire refugia (unburnt patches within large wildfires) are important for the persistence of fire‐sensitive species across forested landscapes globally. A key challenge is to identify the factors that determine the distribution of fire refugia across space and time. In particular, determining the relative influence of climatic and landscape factors is important in order to understand likely changes in the distribution of wildfire refugia under future climates. Here, we examine the relative effect of weather (i.e. fire weather, drought severity) and landscape features (i.e. topography, fuel age, vegetation type) on the occurrence of fire refugia across 26 large wildfires in south‐eastern Australia. Fire weather and drought severity were the primary drivers of the occurrence of fire refugia, moderating the effect of landscape attributes. Unburnt patches rarely occurred under ‘severe’ fire weather, irrespective of drought severity, topography, fuels or vegetation community. The influence of drought severity and landscape factors played out most strongly under ‘moderate’ fire weather. In mesic forests, fire refugia were linked to variables that affect fuel moisture, whereby the occurrence of unburnt patches decreased with increasing drought conditions and were associated with more mesic topographic locations (i.e. gullies, pole‐facing aspects) and vegetation communities (i.e. closed‐forest). In dry forest, the occurrence of refugia was responsive to fuel age, being associated with recently burnt areas (<5 years since fire). Overall, these results show that increased severity of fire weather and increased drought conditions, both predicted under future climate scenarios, are likely to lead to a reduction of wildfire refugia across forests of southern Australia. Protection of topographic areas able to provide long‐term fire refugia will be an important step towards maintaining the ecological integrity of forests under future climate change.     

Dominant Drivers of Seedling Establishment in a Fire-Dependent Obligate Seeder: Climate or Fire Regimes?

Climate change is causing fire regime shifts in ecosystems worldwide. Plant species with regeneration strategies strongly linked to a fire regime, such as obligate seeders, may be particularly threatened by these changes. It is unclear whether changes in fire regimes or the direct effects of climate change will be the dominant threats to obligate seeders in future. We investigated the relative importance of fire-related variables (fire return interval and fire severity) and environmental factors (climate and topography) on seedling establishment in the world’s tallest angiosperm, an obligate seeder, Eucalyptus regnans. Throughout its range, this species dominates the wet montane forests of south-eastern Australia and plays a keystone role in forest structure. Following major wildfires, we investigated seedling establishment in E. regnans within 1 year of fire as this is a critical stage in the regeneration niche of obligate seeders. Seedling presence and abundance were strongly related to the occurrence of fire but not to variation in fire severity (moderate vs. high severity). Seedling abundance increased with increasing fire return interval (range 26–300 years). First-year seedling establishment was also strongly associated with low temperatures and with high elevations, high precipitation and persistent soil water availability. Our results show that both climate and fire regimes are strong drivers of E. regnans seedling establishment. The predicted warming and drying of the climate might reduce the regeneration potential for some obligate seeders in future and these threats are likely to be compounded by changes in fire regimes, particularly increases in fire frequency.     

Climatic and edaphic gradients predict variation in wildland fuel hazard in south-eastern Australia

Understanding spatial variation in wildland fuel is central to predicting wildfire behaviour as well as current and future fire regimes. Vegetation (plant material) – both live (biomass) and dead (necromass) – constitutes most aspects of wildland fuel (hereafter ‘fuel’). It therefore is likely that factors influencing vegetation structure and composition – climate, soils, disturbance – also will influence fuel structure and associated hazard. Nonetheless, these relationships are poorly understood in temperate environments. In this study, we used an extensive database of fuel hazard assessments to determine the extent to which environmental variables (climatic conditions and soil type) and disturbance (fire) can predict fuel hazard in native vegetation across south-eastern Australia. Fuel hazard ratings are based on the horizontal and vertical continuity of fine fuels (dead plant material < 6 mm thick, and live plant material < 3 mm thick) that burn in the flaming front of a fire. These scores are used widely by fire managers in Australia. We used environmental and disturbance variables to develop models to predict spatial patterns of hazard for each fuel stratum (surface, near-surface, elevated and bark) and the height of two fuel strata (near-surface, elevated). Soil, climate and time since fire were strong predictors of fuel hazard for at least one stratum, and soil predictors were the strongest predictors of fuel hazard across all strata. We used models to predict fuel hazard by stratum at a fixed time since fire in two regions with contrasting environments in south-eastern Australia to better understand the spatial arrangement of fuel hazard. Fuel hazard varied within and between regions, emphasising the complexity and heterogeneity of fuel patterns that affect fuel hazard from local to landscape extents. The models improve the basis for analysing fuel hazard patterns and therefore increase the capacity to predict fire regimes under future climates.     

Gradient Analysis of Fire Regimes in Montane Forests of the Southern Cascade Range,Thousand Lakes Wilderness,California, USA

Species distribution and abundance patterns in the southern Cascades are influenced by both environmental gradients and fire regimes. Little is known about fire regimes and variation in fire regimes may not be independent of environmental gradients or vegetation patterns. In this study, we analyze variation in fire regime parameters (i.e., return interval, season, size, severity, and rotation period) with respect to forest composition, elevation, and potential soil moisture in a 2042 ha area of montane forest in the southern Cascades in the Thousand Lakes Wilderness (TLW). Fire regime parameters varied with forest composition, elevation, and potential soil moisture. Median composite and point fire return intervals were shorter (4-9 yr, 14-24 yr) in low elevation and more xeric white fir (Abies concolor)-sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) and white fir-Jeffrey pine (P. jeffreyi) and longest (20-37 yr, 20-47 yr) in mesic high elevation lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and red fir (Abies magnifica)-mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) forests. Values for mid-elevation red fir-white fir forests were intermediate. The pattern for fire rotation lengths across gradients was the same as for fire return intervals. The percentage of fires that occurred during the growing season was inversely related to elevation and potential soil moisture. Mean fire sizes were larger in lodgepole pine forests (405 ha) than in other forest groups (103-151 ha). In contrast to other parameters, fire severity did not vary across environmental and compositional gradients and >50% of all forests burned at high severity with most of the remainder burning at moderate severity. Since 1905, fire regimes have become similar at all gradient positions because of a policy of suppressing fire and fire regime modification will lead to shifts in landscape scale vegetation patterns.     

Forest Pattern, Fire, and Climatic Change in the Sierra Nevada

In the Sierra Nevada, distributions of forest tree species are largely controlled by the soil-moisture balance. Changes in temperature or precipitation as a result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations could lead to changes in species distributions. In addition, climatic change could increase the frequency and severity of wildfires. We used a forest gap model developed for Sierra Nevada forests to investigate the potential sensitivity of these forests to climatic change, including a changing fire regime. Fuel moisture influences the fire regime and couples fire to climate. Fires are also affected by fuel loads, which accumulate according to forest structure and composition. These model features were used to investigate the complex interactions between climate, fire, and forest dynamics. Eight hypothetical climate-change scenarios were simulated, including two general circulation model (GCM) predictions of a 2 × CO₂ world. The response of forest structure,species composition, and the fire regime to these changes in the climate were examined at four sites across an elevation gradient. Impacts on woody biomass and species composition as a result of climatic change were site specific and depended on the environmental constraints of a site and the environmental tolerances of the tree species simulated. Climatic change altered the fire regime both directly and indirectly. Fire frequency responded directly to climate's influence on fuel moisture, whereas fire extent was affected by changes that occurred in either woody biomass or species composition. The influence of species composition on fuel-bed bulk density was particularly important. Future fires in the Sierra Nevada could be both more frequent and of greater spatial extent if GCM predictions prove true. Received 5 May 1998; accepted 4 November 1998.     

Vegetation controls vary across space and spatial scale in a historic grassland‐forest biome boundary

Ecological boundaries are critical landscape regions of transition between adjacent ecological systems. While environmental controls of boundaries may operate in a scale‐dependent manner, multiple‐scale comparisons of vegetation–environment relationships have been characterized for few boundary systems. We used approximately 250 000 point records on the occurrence of woody versus grassland vegetation in conjunction with climatic, topographical, and soils data to evaluate scale effects and spatial heterogeneity in a 650‐km section of the historic prairie–forest biome boundary of Minnesota, USA. We chose this as a model system because of the availability of historical vegetation data, a considerable spatial extent, a sharp ecological transition, and the ability to avoid confounding from more recent anthropogenic land use change. We developed modeling techniques using hierarchical variance partitioning in a spatially‐structured format that allowed us to simultaneously evaluate vegetation–environment relationships across two‐dimensional space (i.e. the prairie‐forest boundary) and across spatial scales (i.e. varying extents). Soils variables displayed the least spatial autocorrelation at shortest lag distances and tended to be the least important predictors of woody vegetation at all spatial extents. Topographical variables displayed greater spatial heterogeneity in regions dominated by forest compared with prairie and were more important at fine‐intermediate spatial scales, highlighting their likely control on fire regimes. An integrated climatic variable (precipitation minus potential evapotranspiration) displayed a trend of increasing spatial variance across the study region and was unambiguously the strongest biome boundary control, although its joint influence with fire was difficult to characterize. Spatially heterogeneous vegetation–environment relationships were observed at all scales, especially at finer scales. Our results suggest that the importance of environmental controls changes smoothly rather than discretely across scales and demonstrate the need to account for spatial non‐stationarity and scale to predict and understand vegetation distribution across ecological boundaries.     

Long‐term variability and rainfall control of savanna fire regimes in equatorial East Africa

Fires burning the vast grasslands and savannas of Africa significantly influence the global carbon cycle. Projecting the impacts of future climate change on fire‐mediated biogeochemical processes in these dry tropical ecosystems requires understanding of how various climate factors influence regional fire regimes. To examine climate–vegetation–fire linkages in dry savanna, we conducted macroscopic and microscopic charcoal analysis on the sediments of the past 25 000 years from Lake Challa, a deep crater lake in equatorial East Africa. The charcoal‐inferred shifts in local and regional fire regimes were compared with previously published reconstructions of temperature, rainfall, seasonal drought severity, and vegetation dynamics to evaluate millennial‐scale drivers of fire occurrence. Our charcoal data indicate that fire in the dry lowland savanna of southeastern Kenya was not fuel‐limited during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and Late Glacial, in contrast to many other regions throughout the world. Fire activity remained high at Lake Challa probably because the relatively high mean‐annual temperature (~22 °C) allowed productive C₄ grasses with high water‐use efficiency to dominate the landscape. From the LGM through the middle Holocene, the relative importance of savanna burning in the region varied primarily in response to changes in rainfall and dry‐season length, which were controlled by orbital insolation forcing of tropical monsoon dynamics. The fuel limitation that characterizes the region's fire regime today appears to have begun around 5000–6000 years ago, when warmer interglacial conditions coincided with prolonged seasonal drought. Thus, insolation‐driven variation in the amount and seasonality of rainfall during the past 25 000 years altered the immediate controls on fire occurrence in the grass‐dominated savannas of eastern equatorial Africa. These results show that climatic impacts on dry‐savanna burning are heterogeneous through time, with important implications for efforts to anticipate future shifts in fire‐mediated ecosystem processes.     

Climate and spatio-temporal variation in the population dynamics of a long distance migrant, the white stork

1. A central question in ecology is to separate the relative contribution of density dependence and stochastic influences to annual fluctuations in population size. Here we estimate the deterministic and stochastic components of the dynamics of different European populations of white stork Ciconia ciconia. We then examined whether annual changes in population size was related to the climate during the breeding period (the 'tap hypothesis' sensu Saether, Sutherland & Engen (2004, Advances in Ecological Research, 35, 185 209) or during the nonbreeding period, especially in the winter areas in Africa (the 'tube hypothesis'). 2. A general characteristic of the population dynamics of this long-distance migrant is small environmental stochasticity and strong density regulation around the carrying capacity with short return times to equilibrium. 3. Annual changes in the size of the eastern European populations were correlated by rainfall in the wintering areas in Africa as well as local weather in the breeding areas just before arrival and in the later part of the breeding season and regional climate variation (North Atlantic Oscillation). This indicates that weather influences the population fluctuations of white storks through losses of sexually mature individuals as well as through an effect on the number of individuals that manages to establish themselves in the breeding population. Thus, both the tap and tube hypothesis explains climate influences on white stork population dynamics. 4. The spatial scale of environmental noise after accounting for the local dynamics was 67 km, suggesting that the strong density dependence reduces the synchronizing effects of climate variation on the population dynamics of white stork. 5. Several climate variables reduced the synchrony of the residual variation in population size after accounting for density dependence and demographic stochasticity, indicating that these climate variables had a synchronizing effect on the population fluctuations. In contrast, other climatic variables acted as desynchronizing agents. 6. Our results illustrate that evaluating the effects of common environmental variables on the spatio-temporal variation in population dynamics require estimates and modelling of their influence on the local dynamics.     

The relationship between temporal patterns of wildfires and phytoclimatic regions in Sardinia (Italy)

Abstract

As a precursor to land management and biodiversity conservation, hierarchical landscape classification and mapping has recently received renewed attention. Since climate is the main factor affecting the coarse‐scale spatial distribution of vegetation types, the first step to deal with for developing a hierarchical landscape classification is to categorize the landscape based on the climatic variables that influence the biological systems. Climate also plays an important role in characterizing wildfire regimes. Through its influence on biomass production, climate controls fuel availability. At the same time, climate affects fuel moisture, which is the main determinant for fire ignition and propagation. The influence of climate on coarse‐scale landscape classification and fire regimes invites a comparison of phytoclimatic maps to wildfire data. The main objectives of this paper are: (1) to evaluate the phenological uniqueness of the main phytoclimatic regions of Sardinia (Italy) based on five‐year data (2000–04) of SPOT‐Vegetation NDVI profiles, and (2) to evaluate to what extent the wildfire time series associated to the phytoclimatic regions of Sardinia differ in their temporal properties over the same time span.     

Fire regimes of China: inference from statistical comparison with the United States

Aim Substantial overlap in the climate characteristics of the United States and China results in similar land‐cover types and weather conditions, especially in the eastern half of the two countries. These parallels suggest similarities in fire regimes as well, yet relatively little is known about the historical role of fire in Chinese ecosystems. Consequently, we aimed to infer fire regime characteristics for China based on our understanding of climate–fire relationships in the United States. Location The conterminous United States and the People's Republic of China. Methods We used generalized additive models to quantify the relationship between reference fire regime classes adopted by the LANDFIRE initiative in the United States, and a global climate data set. With the models, we determined which climate variables best described the distribution of fire regimes in the United States then used these models to predict the spatial distribution of fire regimes in China. The fitted models were validated quantitatively using receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (AUC). We validated the predicted fire regimes in China by comparison with palaeoecological fire data and satellite‐derived estimates of current fire activity. Results Quantitative validation using the AUC indicated good discrimination of the distribution of fire regimes by models for the United States. Overall, fire regimes with more frequent return intervals were more likely in the east than in the west. The resolution of available historical and prehistorical fire data for China, including sediment cores, allowed only coarse, qualitative validation, but provided supporting evidence that fire has long been a part of ecosystem function in eastern China. MODIS satellite data illustrated that fire frequency within the last decade supported the classification of much of western China as relatively fire‐free; however, much of south‐eastern China experiences more fire activity than predicted with our models, probably as a function of the extensive use of fire by people. Conclusions While acknowledging there are many cultural, environmental and historical differences between the United States and China, our fire regime models based on climate data demonstrate potential historical fire regimes for China, and propose that large areas of China share historical fire–vegetation–climate complexes with the United States.     

大兴安岭人为火发生影响因素及气候变化下的趋势

我国重要的北方针叶林地区大兴安岭是林火高发地区.受气候变暖影响,该地区林火发生频率将会发生显著变化.模拟人为火的发生分布与影响因素之间的关系、加强气候变化下人为火的发生分布预测,对于林火管理和减少森林碳损失具有重要作用.本文采用点格局分析方法,基于大兴安岭1967—2006年的火烧数据,建立人为火空间分布与影响因素之间的关系模型,该模型以林火发生次数为因变量,选取非生物因子(年均温和降水量、坡度、坡向和海拔)、生物因子(植被类型)和人为活动因子(距离道路距离、距离居民点距离、道路密度)共9个因子为自变量.并采用RCP 2.6和RCP 8.5气候情景数据代替当前气候情景预测2050年大兴安岭人为火的空间分布状况.结果表明: 点格局模型能够较好地模拟人为火发生分布与空间变量的关系,可以预测未来气候下人为火的发生概率.其中,气候因子对人为火的发生具有明显的控制作用,植被类型、海拔和人为活动等因子对人为火的发生也具有重要影响.林火发生预测结果表明,未来气候变化下,南部地区的林火发生概率将进一步增加,北部和沿主要道路干线附近将成为新的人为火高发区.与当前相比,2050年大兴安岭人为火的发生概率将增加72.2%～166.7%.在未来气候情景下,人为火的发生更多受气候和人为活动因素的控制.     

How does forest landscape structure explain tree species richness in a Mediterranean context?

Although the strong relationship between vegetation and climatic factors is widely accepted, other landscape composition and configuration characteristics could be significantly related with vegetation diversity patterns at different scales. Variation partitioning was conducted in order to analyse to what degree forest landscape structure, compared to other spatial and environmental factors, explained forest tree species richness in 278 UTM 10 × 10 km cells in the Mediterranean region of Catalonia (NE Spain). Tree species richness variation was decomposed through linear regression into three groups of explanatory variables: forest landscape (composition and configuration), environmental (topography and climate) and spatial variables. Additionally, the forest landscape characteristics which significantly contributed to explain richness variation were identified through a multiple regression model. About 60% of tree species richness variation was explained by the whole set of variables, while their joint effects explained nearly 28%. Forest landscape variables were those with a greater pure explanatory power for tree species richness (about 15% of total variation), much larger than the pure effect of environmental or spatial variables (about 2% each). Forest canopy cover, forest area and land cover diversity were the most significant composition variables in the regression model. Landscape configuration metrics had a minor effect on forest tree species richness, with the exception of some shape complexity indices, as indicators of land use intensity and edge effects. Our results highlight the importance of considering the forest landscape structure in order to understand the distribution of vegetation diversity in strongly human-modified regions like the Mediterranean.     

Fire severity mediates climate‐driven shifts in understorey community composition of black spruce stands of interior Alaska

Question: How do pre‐fire conditions (community composition and environmental characteristics) and climate‐driven disturbance characteristics (fire severity) affect post‐fire community composition in black spruce stands? Location: Northern boreal forest, interior Alaska. Methods: We compared plant community composition and environmental stand characteristics in 14 black spruce stands before and after multiple, naturally occurring wildfires. We used a combination of vegetation table sorting, univariate (ANOVA, paired t‐tests), and multivariate (detrended correspondence analysis) statistics to determine the impact of fire severity and site moisture on community composition, dominant species and growth forms. Results: Severe wildfires caused a 50% reduction in number of plant species in our study sites. The largest species loss, and therefore the greatest change in species composition, occurred in severely burned sites. This was due mostly to loss of non‐vascular species (mosses and lichens) and evergreen shrubs. New species recruited most abundantly to severely burned sites, contributing to high species turnover on these sites. As well as the strong effect of fire severity, pre‐fire and post‐fire mineral soil pH had an effect on post‐fire vegetation patterns, suggesting a legacy effect of site acidity. In contrast, pre‐fire site moisture, which was a strong determinant of pre‐fire community composition, showed no relationship with post‐fire community composition. Site moisture was altered by fire, due to changes in permafrost, and therefore post‐fire site moisture overrode pre‐fire site moisture as a strong correlate. Conclusions: In the rapidly warming climate of interior Alaska, changes in fire severity had more effect on post‐fire community composition than did environmental factors (moisture and pH) that govern landscape patterns of unburned vegetation. This suggests that climate change effects on future community composition of black spruce forests may be mediated more strongly by fire severity than by current landscape patterns. Hence, models that represent the effects of climate change on boreal forests could improve their accuracy by including dynamic responses to fire disturbance.     

When can refuges mediate the genetic effects of fire regimes? A simulation study of the effects of topography and weather on neutral and adaptive genetic diversity in fire‐prone landscapes

Understanding how landscape heterogeneity mediates the effects of fire on biodiversity is increasingly important under global changes in fire regimes. We used a simulation experiment to investigate how fire regimes interact with topography and weather to shape neutral and selection‐driven genetic diversity under alternative dispersal scenarios, and to explore the conditions under which microrefuges can maintain genetic diversity of populations exposed to recurrent fire. Spatial heterogeneity in simulated fire frequency occurred in topographically complex landscapes, with fire refuges and fire‐prone “hotspots” apparent. Interannual weather variability reduced the effect of topography on fire patterns, with refuges less apparent under high weather variability. Neutral genetic diversity was correlated with long‐term fire frequency under spatially heterogeneous fire regimes, being higher in fire refuges than fire‐prone areas, except under high dispersal or low fire severity (low mortality). This generated different spatial genetic structures in fire‐prone and fire‐refuge components of the landscape, despite similar dispersal. In contrast, genetic diversity was only associated with time since the most recent fire in flat landscapes without predictable refuges and hotspots. Genetic effects of selection driven by fire‐related conditions depended on selection pressure, migration distance and spatial heterogeneity in fire regimes. Allele frequencies at a locus conferring higher fitness under successional environmental conditions followed a pattern of “temporal adaptation” to contemporary conditions under strong selection pressure and high migration. However, selected allele frequencies were correlated with spatial variation in long‐term mean fire frequency (relating to environmental predictability) under weak dispersal, low selection pressure and strong spatial heterogeneity in fire regimes.