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Past and present vulnerability of closed-canopy temperate forests to altered fire regimes: a comparison of the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and Patagonia
Citation
Whitlock, C and McWethy, DB and Tepley, AJ and Veblen, TT and Holz, A and McGlone, MS and Perry, GLW and Wilmshurst, JM and Wood, SW, Past and present vulnerability of closed-canopy temperate forests to altered fire regimes: a comparison of the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and Patagonia, Bioscience, 65, (2) pp. 151-163. ISSN 0006-3568 (2014) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2014 The Authors-distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
DOI: doi:10.1093/biosci/biu194
Abstract
The relative importance of people and climate in shaping prehistoric fire regimes is debated around the world, and this discussion has helped
inform our understanding of past and present ecosystem dynamics. Evidence for extensive anthropogenic burning of temperate closed-canopy
forests prior to European settlement is geographically variable, and the factors responsible for this variability are not well resolved. We set out to
explain the differences in the influence of prehistoric human-set fires in seasonally dry forest types in the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and
northern Patagonia by comparing the fire traits of dominant taxa, postfire vegetation recovery, long-term climate trends, and human activities
that may have motivated burning. Our analysis suggests that ecological and climatic factors explain much of the differences in how these
mesic–dry forests responded to prehistoric anthropogenic burning. Understanding past human–environment interactions at regional scales is an
important step for assessing the impact of biomass burning at all scales.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | fire history, vegetation flammability, prehistoric anthropogenic burning, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Nothofagus forest fire regimes, ecology |
| Research Division: | Environmental Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecological applications |
| Research Field: | Landscape ecology |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
| Objective Group: | Terrestrial systems and management |
| Objective Field: | Terrestrial biodiversity |
| UTAS Author: | Holz, A (Dr Andres Holz) |
| UTAS Author: | Wood, SW (Mr Samuel Wood) |
| ID Code: | 98030 |
| Year Published: | 2014 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 28 |
| Deposited By: | Plant Science |
| Deposited On: | 2015-01-29 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-10-31 |
| Downloads: | 244 View Download Statistics |
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