Journal ArticleDOI
The global fire–productivity relationship
Juli G. Pausas,E. Ribeiro +1 more
TLDR
In this paper, the intermediate fire-productivity model has been validated across all world ecosystems, including Antarctica, and it has been suggested that on a global scale, fire activity changes along the productivity/aridity gradient following a humped relationship.Abstract:
Aim
It has been suggested that on a global scale, fire activity changes along the productivity/aridity gradient following a humped relationship, i.e. the intermediate fire–productivity hypothesis. This relation should be driven by differing relative roles of the main fire drivers (weather and fuel) along the productivity gradient. However, the full intermediate fire–productivity model across all world ecosystems remains to be validated.
Location
The entire globe, excluding Antarctica.
Methods
To test the intermediate fire–productivity hypothesis, we use the world ecoregions as a spatial unit and, for each ecoregion, we compiled remotely sensed fire activity, climate, biomass and productivity information. The regression coefficient between monthly MODIS fire activity and monthly maximum temperature in each ecoregion was considered an indicator of the sensitivity of fire to high temperatures in the ecoregion. We used linear and generalized additive models to test for the linear and humped relationships.
Results
Fire occurs in most ecoregions. Fire activity peaked in tropical grasslands and savannas, and significantly decreased towards the extremes of the productivity gradient. Both the sensitivity of fire to high temperatures and above-ground biomass increased monotonically with productivity. In other words, fire activity in low-productivity ecosystems is not driven by warm periods and is limited by low biomass; in contrast, in high-productivity ecosystems fire is more sensitive to high temperatures, and in these ecosystems, the available biomass for fires is high.
Main conclusion
The results support the intermediate fire–productivity model on a global scale and suggest that climatic warming may affect fire activity differently depending on the productivity of the region. Fire regimes in productive regions are vulnerable to warming (drought-driven fire regime changes), while in low-productivity regions fire activity is more vulnerable to fuel changes (fuel-driven fire regime changes).read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that human-caused climate change caused over half of the documented increases in fuel aridity since the 1970s and doubled the cumulative forest fire area since 1984, and suggests that anthropogenic climate change will continue to chronically enhance the potential for western US forest fire activity while fuels are not limiting.
Journal ArticleDOI
Forest disturbances under climate change
Rupert Seidl,Dominik Thom,Markus Kautz,Dario Martin-Benito,Dario Martin-Benito,Mikko Peltoniemi,Giorgio Vacchiano,Jan Wild,Jan Wild,Davide Ascoli,Michal Petr,Juha Honkaniemi,Manfred J. Lexer,Volodymyr Trotsiuk,Paola Mairota,Paola Mairota,Miroslav Svoboda,Marek Fabrika,Thomas A. Nagel,Thomas A. Nagel,Christopher P. O. Reyer +20 more
TL;DR: It is concluded that both ecosystems and society should be prepared for an increasingly disturbed future of forests, as warmer and drier conditions particularly facilitate fire, drought and insect disturbances, while warmer and wetter conditions increase disturbances from wind and pathogens.
Journal ArticleDOI
Human exposure and sensitivity to globally extreme wildfire events.
David M. J. S. Bowman,Grant J. Williamson,John T. Abatzoglou,Crystal A. Kolden,Mark A. Cochrane,Alistair M. S. Smith +5 more
TL;DR: Climate change projections suggest an increase in days conducive to extreme wildfire events by 20 to 50% in these disaster-prone landscapes, with sharper increases in the subtropical Southern Hemisphere and European Mediterranean Basin.
Journal ArticleDOI
Vegetation fires in the Anthropocene
David M. J. S. Bowman,Crystal A. Kolden,John T. Abatzoglou,Fay H. Johnston,Guido R. van der Werf,Mike D. Flannigan +5 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe recent global and regional trends in fire activity and examine projections for fire regimes in the near future, concluding that the economic and environmental impacts of vegetation fires will worsen as a result of anthropogenic climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evolutionary ecology of resprouting and seeding in fire-prone ecosystems
TL;DR: This work proposes a bottom-up approach that considers the relative survivorship of adults and juveniles in an evolutionary context, based on two assumptions, and provides a framework for understanding temporal and spatial variation in resprouting and seeding under crown-fire regimes.
References
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Journal Article
Paleoecological Perspectives on Fire Ecology: Revisiting the Fire-Regime Concept
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use tree-ring records and lake-sediment data to examine fire occurrence across multiple spatial and temporal scales and provide relevant information for the types of fire regimes likely to occur in the future with projected climate and land use change.
Book ChapterDOI
Generalised Additive Models
TL;DR: In this chapter nonlinearities are explored using several techniques; discretisation, polynomial regression, splines and generalised additive models.
Journal ArticleDOI
Seasonality of vegetation fires as modified by human action: observing the deviation from eco-climatic fire regimes
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the global patterns of fire seasonality, which they relate to climatic, anthropogenic, land-cover and land-use variables, with detailed analyses from single 1°× 1° grid cells.
Journal ArticleDOI
Spatial variability in wildfire probability across the western United States
Marc-André Parisien,Marc-André Parisien,Susan Snetsinger,Jonathan A. Greenberg,Cara R. Nelson,Tania Schoennagel,Solomon Z. Dobrowski,Max A. Moritz +7 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the MaxEnt algorithm was used to predict wildfire probability in the western USA, and the effect of anthropogenic factors on wildfire probability varied by region but, on the whole, humans appear to inhibit fire activity in western USA.
Journal ArticleDOI
Terrestrial ecosystems from space: a review of earth observation products for macroecology applications
TL;DR: Aim Earth Observations (EO) products are a valuable alternative to spectral vegetation indices and have been extensively used in the field of macroecology, particularly related to vegetation, on a range of spatial and temporal scales as discussed by the authors.
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