The understanding of historic hydroclimatic variability is basic for planning proper management of limited water resources in northeastern Mexico.
Fire regimes in North American forests are diverse and modern fire records are often too short to capture important patterns, trends, feedbacks, and drivers of variability. Tree‐ring fire scars provide valuable perspectives on fire regimes, including centuries‐long records of fire year, season, frequency, severity, and size. Here, we introduce the newly compiled North American tree‐ring fire‐scar network (NAFSN), which contains 2562 sites, >37,000 fire‐scarred trees, and covers large parts of North America. We investigate the NAFSN in terms of geography, sample depth, vegetation, topography, climate, and human land use. Fire scars are found in most ecoregions, from boreal forests in northern Alaska and Canada to subtropical forests in southern Florida and Mexico. The network includes 91 tree species, but is dominated by gymnosperms in the genus Pinus. Fire scars are found from sea level to >4000‐m elevation and across a range of topographic settings that vary by ecoregion. Multiple regions are densely sampled (e.g., >1000 fire‐scarred trees), enabling new spatial analyses such as reconstructions of area burned. To demonstrate the potential of the network, we compared the climate space of the NAFSN to those of modern fires and forests; the NAFSN spans a climate space largely representative of the forested areas in North America, with notable gaps in warmer tropical climates. Modern fires are burning in similar climate spaces as historical fires, but disproportionately in warmer regions compared to the historical record, possibly related to under‐sampling of warm subtropical forests or supporting observations of changing fire regimes. The historical influence of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous human land use on fire regimes varies in space and time. A 20th century fire deficit associated with human activities is evident in many regions, yet fire regimes characterized by frequent surface fires are still active in some areas (e.g., Mexico and the southeastern United States). These analyses provide a foundation and framework for future studies using the hundreds of thousands of annually‐ to sub‐annually‐resolved tree‐ring records of fire spanning centuries, which will further advance our understanding of the interactions among fire, climate, topography, vegetation, and humans across North America.
SUMMARYSierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve (RBSM) in Jalisco is the most important reserve in western Mexico, where fires are one of the main forest disturbances. In order to reconstruct historical fire regimes, partial sections of Pinus douglasiana with fire scars were collected. Using dendrochronological techniques, the exact dating of 293 scars from 51 trees allowed the reconstruction of fire frequency for the period 1867-2010. We reconstructed mean fire interval of 5.5 years (MFI: all scars) and 3.6 years for the Weibull mean probability interval (WMPI). The MFI (≥ 25 % scarred) was 8.9 years and WMPI was 6.9 years. The seasonal patterns of fire occurrence showed that most fires (68.3 %) were formed in middle earlywood, 30 % in early earlywood and 1.7 % in late earlywood. Considering the phenology of the species, it was determined that 98.3 % of fires occurred in spring and 1.7 % at the beginning of summer. The fires were recorded in dry years, but the relationship was not statistically significant. A strong relationship between droughts and widespread fires was observed. Likewise, it was determined that climate variability was strongly related to ENSO; fires reconstructed from 1956 to 2010 correspond with both El Niño and La Niña events.Key words: Sierra de Manantlán, fire reconstruction, Pinus douglasiana, climate, El Niño Southern Oscillation. RESUMENLa Reserva de la Biosfera Sierra de Manantlán (RBSM) en Jalisco, representa la reserva más importante del Occidente de México, donde los incendios son uno de los principales elementos de la dinámica del bosque. Con el objetivo de reconstruir la historia del fuego, se colectaron secciones parciales de Pinus douglasiana con cicatrices de incendios. El fechado exacto de 293 cicatrices registradas en 51 árboles mediante técnicas dendrocronológicas, permitió reconstruir la frecuencia para el período 1867 a 2010. El intérvalo medio de frecuencia (MFI, por sus siglas en inglés) fue de 5,5 años y un intérvalo medio de probabilidad de incendios (WMPI, por sus siglas en inglés) de 3,6 años, para todas las cicatrices. Al considerar cicatrices que se encuentran en ≥ 25 % de las muestras, se determinó un MFI de 8,9 años y un WMPI de 6,9 años. La estacionalidad de ocurrencia indica, mayor cantidad de incendios (68,3 %) en la mitad de la madera temprana, 30 % al inicio y 1,7 % al final de la madera temprana. Considerando la fenología de la especie se determinó que el 98,3 % de los incendios corresponde a la estación de primavera y el 1,7 % al inicio del verano. Se observó relación entre la disminución de la lluvia (sequías) y la frecuencia de incendios severos, aunque no de manera significativa. Así mismo, se determinó que la variabilidad estuvo relacionada con El Niño Oscilación del Sur (ENSO), los incendios reconstruidos de 1956 a 2010 coinciden con eventos Niño y Niña.Palabras clave: Sierra de Manantlán, reconstrucción de incendios, Pinus douglasiana, clima, El Niño Oscilación del Sur.
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