Macrocharcoal-Based Chronosequences Reveal Shifting Dominance of Conifer Boreal Forests Under Changing Fire Regime

Couillard, Pierre-Luc; Payette, Serge; Lavoie, Martin; Frégeau, Mathieu

doi:10.1007/s10021-017-0211-3

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…line with field observations of most common communities(Jasinski and Payette 2005;Couillard et al 2012) and paleoecological findings, which identify recurrent turnovers between balsam fir and black spruce communities, characterized by fire frequency shifts(Ali et al 2008;de Lafontaine and Payette 2010;Couillard et al 2018).…”

supporting

confidence: 84%

“…S6 in Online Supplement A). The combination of the fire response of the strongest competitor and the competition strength between the two best competitors explained the presence of a stable forest of resprouter holm oak in the Mediterranean basin (Amici et al 2013;Carnicer et al 2014), the bistability between the fire-intolerant tropical forest and humid savannas (Staver et al 2011a;Dantas et al 2016;D'Onofrio et al 2018) and the temporal alternation of fir-or spruce-dominated forests reported for North America by palaeoecological records (Couillard et al 2018). Moreover, the drivers that we identified for the plant communities agree with, and expand on those used by Van Nes et al (2018), which explain the forest-savanna bistability as a tradeoff between growth and fire-induced mortality of trees.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Such vegetation-fire feedback has been suggested to preserve savannas in areas where a closed humid forest might be expected based on climatic conditions alone (Van Langevelde et al 2003;Bond 2008;Dantas et al 2016;D'Onofrio et al 2018). Similar examples of fire's role in maintaining ecological stability have been shown in boreal (Johnstone et al 2010;Rogers et al 2015;Couillard et al 2018;Abis and Brovkin 2019) and temperate forests (Kitzberger et al 2012(Kitzberger et al , 2016Tepley et al 2016). Thus, fire regimes involve several feedbacks between plants, fires and climate, at differing spatial and temporal scales (Wright and Clarke 2007;Ali et al 2008;Pausas and Keeley 2009;Johnstone et al 2010;Archibald et al 2018;Karavani et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

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Fire Responses Shape Plant Communities in a Minimal Model for Fire Ecosystems across the World

Magnani

Díaz‐Sierra

Sweeney

et al. 2023

The American Naturalist

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Across plant communities worldwide, fire regimes reflect a combination of climatic factors and plant characteristics. To shed new light on the complex relationships between plant characteristics and fire regimes, we developed a new conceptual, mechanistic model that includes plant competition, stochastic fires, and fire-vegetation feedback. Considering a single standing plant functional type, we observed that highly flammable and slowly colonizing plants can persist only when they have a strong fire response, while fast colonizing and less flammable plants can display a larger range of fire responses. At the community level, the fire response of the strongest competitor determines the existence of alternative ecological states, i.e. different plant communities, under the same environmental conditions. Specifically, when the strongest competitor had a very strong fire response, such as in Mediterranean forests, only one ecological state could be achieved. Conversely, when the strongest competitor was poorly fire-adapted, alternative ecological states emerged, for example between tropical humid savannas and forests, or between different types of boreal forests. These findings underline the importance of including the plant fire response when modeling fire ecosystems, e.g. to predict the vegetation response to invasive species or to climate change.MM contributed to the software development, coding simulation, model parameterization, analysis of results, visualization, writing the original draft, reviewing, and editing. RDS derived the nondimensional formulation of the model, and contributed to the analysis of results, writing the original draft, reviewing, and editing. LS contributed to conceiving the original idea of this work, writing the original draft, the reviewing and editing. AP provided useful feedback during result analysis, and contributed to supervision, reviewing, and editing. MB conceived the original idea of this work, and contributed to software development, model parameterization, analysis of results, supervision, visualization, writing the original draft, reviewing, and editing.

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supporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

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Fire Responses Shape Plant Communities in a Minimal Model for Fire Ecosystems across the World

Magnani

Díaz‐Sierra

Sweeney

et al. 2023

The American Naturalist

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“…Alternatively, P. banksiana would have been the dominant species as soon as the dune ecosystem was established during the postglacial period, and the fire regime has remained stable as a result of the pine–fire interactions, thus offsetting the role of climate changes on the plant composition or fire regime (Figure 1 A–C). Evidences for the first hypothesis abound in the literature where changes in vegetation and fires occurred during the Holocene progressively (for example, Carcaillet and others 2010 ; Couillard and others 2018 ) or abruptly (for example, Jasinski and Payette 2005 ) moving ecosystems from steady states to another, eventually with intermediate states.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Steady-State Dry Boreal Forest in the Face of Disturbance

et al. 2019

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We used bioproxies from paleosoils buried within two aeolian dunes to test hypotheses concerning the origin of dry sandy boreal forests in Canada. These forests are dominated today by Pinus banksiana Lamb. One hypothesis is that too frequent Holocene stand-replacing fires would have transformed the original vegetation through extirpation of susceptible species to fire in water stress habitat. Alternatively, the ecosystem would have not changed since the dunes stabilized enough to support forest establishment. The vegetation composition and richness were determined by identification of charcoal and macroremains and radiocarbon dating for the chronology. Both sites revealed a similar history covering 6400 years. Half of the charcoal layers were less than 2500 years old in both sites, indicating that they had been subjected to the same fire history. Data indicated a stable plant composition and richness, although the percentage of Pinus decreased slightly over 4000 years (decreasing rate 1% per century). The fungus Cenococcum geophilum was consistently present, with a stochastic abundance. The vegetation grew under natural fire conditions and soil dryness since 6000 years. The ecosystem was probably not stressed by late-Holocene fires or climate changes, as the multi-millennial steady state reveals a resistant and resilient ecosystem.

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“…B.S.P. ), a fire-adapted species that nevertheless can persist in the landscape in the absence of fire (Couillard et al, 2018). Wildland fires are projected to increase in number, size and intensity, due to climate warming and fire frequency could increase by 1.5 to 4 times before 2100 in the Canadian boreal forest (Boulanger et al, 2014), a situation that would likely lead to a reduction in the area covered by balsam fir forests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of a warmer climate and forest composition on soil carbon cycling, soil organic matter stability and stocks in a humid boreal region

Paré

Laganière²,

Larocque

et al. 2022

SOIL

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Abstract. The maintenance of the large soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks of the boreal forest under climate change is a matter of concern. In this study, major soil carbon pools and fluxes were assessed in 22 closed-canopy forests located along an elevation and latitudinal climatic gradient expanding 4 ∘C in mean annual temperature (MAT) for two important boreal conifer forest stand types: balsam fir (Abies balsamea), a fire avoider, and black spruce (Picea mariana), a fire-tolerant species. SOC stocks were not influenced by a warmer climate or by forest type. However, carbon fluxes, including aboveground litterfall rates, as well as total soil respiration (Rs) and heterotrophic (Rh) and autotrophic soil respiration (Ra), were linearly related to temperature (cumulative degree days >5 ∘C). The sensitivity of soil organic matter (SOM) degradation to temperature, assessed by comparing Q10 (rate of change for a T increase of 10 ∘C) of soil respiration and Rs10 (soil respiration rates corrected to 10 ∘C), did not vary along the temperature gradient, while the proportion of bioreactive carbon and nitrogen showed higher values for balsam fir and for warmer sites. Balsam fir forests showed a greater litterfall rate, a better litter quality (lower C : N ratio) and a higher Rs10 than black spruce ones, suggesting that their soils cycle a larger amount of C and N under a similar climate regime. Altogether, these results suggest that a warmer climate and a balsam fir forest composition induce a more rapid SOC turnover. Contrary to common soil organic matter stabilisation hypotheses, greater litter input rates did not lead to higher total SOC stocks, and a warmer climate did not lead to the depletion of bioreactive soil C and N. Positive effects of warming both on fluxes to and from the soil as well as a potential saturation of stabilised SOC could explain these results which apply to the context of this study: a cold and wet environment and a stable vegetation composition along the temperature gradient. While the entire study area is subject to a humid climate, a negative relationship was found between aridity and SOM stocks in the upper mineral soil layer for black spruce forests, suggesting that water balance is more critical than temperature to maintain SOM stocks.

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Macrocharcoal-Based Chronosequences Reveal Shifting Dominance of Conifer Boreal Forests Under Changing Fire Regime

Cited by 10 publications

References 43 publications

Fire Responses Shape Plant Communities in a Minimal Model for Fire Ecosystems across the World

Fire Responses Shape Plant Communities in a Minimal Model for Fire Ecosystems across the World

Long-Term Steady-State Dry Boreal Forest in the Face of Disturbance

Effects of a warmer climate and forest composition on soil carbon cycling, soil organic matter stability and stocks in a humid boreal region

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