Fire Regimes in Dryland Landscapes

Hély, Christelle; Alleaume, Samuel; Runyan, Christiane W.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-23269-6_14

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 157 publications

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“…We view human use of fire to alter resource abundances and distributions as a threshold‐crossing form of niche construction that rapidly alters the ecology of fear. Within the context of savanna‐forest mosaics, fire shifts the balance in favor of savanna 73 . This alters herbivore abundances and distributions, which have further impact on vegetation regimes that go beyond those incurred by the burning 71 .…”

Section: An Ecology Of Fearmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The emergence and intensification of early hunter‐gatherer niche construction

Thompson

Wright

Ivory

2020

Evolutionary Anthropology

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Hunter‐gatherers, especially Pleistocene examples, are not well‐represented in archeological studies of niche construction. However, as the role of humans in shaping environments over long time scales becomes increasingly apparent, it is critical to develop archeological proxies and testable hypotheses about early hunter‐gatherer impacts. Modern foragers engage in niche constructive behaviors aimed at maintaining or increasing the productivity of their environments, and these may have had significant ecological consequences over later human evolution. In some cases, they may also represent behaviors unique to modern Homo sapiens. Archeological and paleoenvironmental data show that African hunter‐gatherers were niche constructors in diverse environments, which have legacies in how ecosystems function today. These can be conceptualized as behaviorally mediated trophic cascades, and tested using archeological and paleoenvironmental proxies. Thus, large‐scale niche construction behavior is possible to identify at deeper time scales, and may be key to understanding the emergence of modern humans.

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Section: An Ecology Of Fearmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…71 shifts the balance in favor of savanna. 73 This alters herbivore abundances and distributions, which have further impact on vegetation regimes that go beyond those incurred by the burning. 71 Environmental restructuring by humans opens novel predation opportunities for other predators.…”

Section: An Ecology Of Fearmentioning

confidence: 99%

The emergence and intensification of early hunter‐gatherer niche construction

Thompson

Wright

Ivory

2020

Evolutionary Anthropology

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“…Fire is a primary disturbance agent that maintains many grassland landscapes (Figure a, e.g., Brown et al., ; Hoetzel, Dupont, Schefuß, Rommerskirchen, & Wefer, ; Jacobs & Scholeder, ; Scheiter et al., ). Most grassland fires occur in Africa and Australia during dry winters (Hély & Alleaume, ), but extensive fires also occur in the Americas, Asia, and Europe (Figure a, van der Werf et al., ). The rapid global agricultural expansion that occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries destroyed many grasslands; in many that remained, fire was effectively removed through landscape fragmentation, the reduction in fuels with grazing, and eventually through direct suppression of fire.…”

Section: Past and Present Role Of Firementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fire scars on trees have long been used to reconstruct past fire events in a wide range of ecosystems, providing baseline estimates of fire‐return intervals for research and natural resource management (Abrams, ; Allen & Palmer, ; Guyette & Stambaugh, ; Ramankutty & Foley, ). In grasslands, where trees are necessarily limited, dendrochronology provides data on fire frequency, regeneration, and resilience in areas adjacent to grasslands or on their periphery (Arno & Gruell, ; Hély & Alleaume, ; Veblen, Kitzberger, Villalba, & Donnegan, ). As trees are scarce in grasslands by definition, tree‐based fire history reconstructions may over‐ or under estimate fire frequency in nearby or adjacent grasslands.…”

Section: Past and Present Role Of Firementioning

confidence: 99%

Global fire history of grassland biomes

Leys

Marlon

Umbanhowar

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Grasslands are globally extensive; they exist in many different climates, at high and low elevations, on nutrient‐rich and nutrient‐poor soils. Grassland distributions today are closely linked to human activities, herbivores, and fire, but many have been converted to urban areas, forests, or agriculture fields. Roughly 80% of fires globally occur in grasslands each year, making fire a critical process in grassland dynamics. Yet, little is known about the long‐term history of fire in grasslands. Here, we analyze sedimentary archives to reconstruct grassland fire histories during the Holocene. Given that grassland locations change over time, we compare several charcoal‐based fire reconstructions based on alternative classification schemes: (a) sites from modern grassland locations; (b) sites that were likely grasslands during the mid‐Holocene; and (c) sites based on author‐derived classifications. We also compare fire histories from grassland sites, forested sites, and all sites globally over the past 12,000 years. Forested versus grassland sites show different trends: grassland burning increased from the early to mid‐Holocene, reaching a maximum about 8000–6000 years ago, and subsequently declined, reaching a minimum around 4000 years ago. In contrast, biomass burning in forests increased during the Holocene until about 2000 years ago. Continental grassland fire history reconstructions show opposing Holocene trends in North versus South America, whereas grassland burning in Australia was highly variable in the early Holocene and much more stable after the mid‐Holocene. The sharp differences in continental as well as forest versus grassland Holocene fire history trajectories have important implications for our understanding of global biomass burning and its emissions, the global carbon cycle, biodiversity, conservation, and land management.

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“…Previous and current climatic conditions play a key role on the probability and the level of fire risk at different spatial and temporal scales. The ability of fire to spread becomes important with the decrease in precipitation, the decrease in relative humidity, the increase in temperature and wind speed (Hély et al, 2019). Past studies reported connecting evidence between topography and fire probability and occurrence (Padilla & Vega-García, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring spatio‐temporal trends and environmental drivers of wildfire occurrence and impacts in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa

2022

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Wildfires are a significant threat to environmental, social, economic and agricultural systems. This study investigated the spatiotemporal trends in wildfire activity and its interactions with climate and environmental factors in Côte d'Ivoire through remotely sensed MODIS data associated with climate, biophysical and anthropogenic data. We analysed relationships between wildfire occurrence and climate drivers using

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Fire Regimes in Dryland Landscapes

Cited by 6 publications

References 157 publications

The emergence and intensification of early hunter‐gatherer niche construction

The emergence and intensification of early hunter‐gatherer niche construction

Global fire history of grassland biomes

Exploring spatio‐temporal trends and environmental drivers of wildfire occurrence and impacts in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa

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