Postglacial climate and fire‐mediated vegetation change on the western Olympic Peninsula, Washington (USA)

Abstract

The mode and tempo of forest compositional change during periods of rapid climate change, including the potential for the fire regime to produce nonlinear relationships between climate and vegetation, is a long‐standing theme of forest ecological research. In the old conifer forests of the coastal Pacific Northwest, fire disturbances are sufficiently rare that their relation to climate and their ecological effects are poorly understood. We used a 14 700‐year high‐resolution sediment record from Yahoo Lake on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA, to examine vegetation (landscape vegetation from pollen and local vegetation from macrofossils) and fire (landscape fire from total charcoal and local fire from charcoal peaks) in conjunction with independent records of climate. We hypothesized that the successional stage of the local forest will exhibit alternate stable states over a range of fire activity, that species turnover will increase abruptly above a certain level of fire activity and that both responses would be more gradual at the landscape scale than the local scale. Supporting these hypotheses, at the local scale, we found strong evidence for alternate stable states of late vs. early successional communities and inertia of species turnover to changing fire activity. At the landscape scale, vegetation responded more gradually to changing fire activity. From 14 700 to 7000 years ago, high landscape vegetation turnover occurred along with high landscape fire activity, especially during the warm summers of the early Holocene. In several instances, local species turned over completely following fire events but several centuries after climate change. In contrast, during the last 7000 years, the local forest composition was dominated by late‐successional species with little species turnover, despite periods of moderate fire activity. We suggest that the relatively minor climate fluctuations of the past 7000 years were not sufficient to cause large‐scale species turnover after fire. The Yahoo Lake fire and vegetation record of the early Holocene provides a model for dramatic ecosystem change following an anticipated shift to warmer summer temperatures.

Fire catalyzed rapid ecological change in lowland coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest over the past 14,000 years

“…Like our study, Gavin et al. () suggest that after 7,000 yr ago state changes generally did not occur after fire in the Olympic Mountains, attributed to low variability in climate over this period. The hypothesis of faster species turnover due to greater climate variability and velocity before 7,000 yr ago also has support in eastern North America (Ordonez and Williams ), where rapid state changes during the late glacial and early Holocene were likely the result of extrinsic climatic forcing (Ordonez and Williams ).…”

“…In contrast, state changes in the PNW during this period (this study, Gavin et al. ) appear to be driven by a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic factors, with evidence for fire catalyzing nearly every large‐scale state change in vegetation.…”

“…), and interpretations of lower‐severity fires in early Holocene Douglas‐fir forests on the Olympic Peninsula (175 km west of our sites, Gavin et al. ). Given evidence of disturbance‐related taxa and that ~50% of low‐severity fires go undetected in small‐hollow charcoal records (Higuera et al.…”

“…Paleorecords from the Olympic Mountains show a strikingly similar pattern of forest history, with two modes of forest dynamics: before 7,000 yr ago, species turnover was rapid and associated with fire, while after 7,000 yr ago, species turnover was slower (Gavin et al. ). Like our study, Gavin et al.…”

Anticipating fire‐mediated impacts of climate change using a demographic framework

“…Fire has been shown to be a catalyst for vegetation shifts (Crausbay, Higuera, Sprugel, & Brubaker, 2017;Donato, Harvey, & Turner, 2016;Gavin, Brubaker, & Greenwald, 2013;Stralberg et al, 2018), accelerating climate-driven changes that would otherwise take decades or centuries to unfold. Vegetation shifts can be caused by a single large fire event (Crausbay et al, 2017;Donato et al, 2016) or by a series of fires over a time period shorter than the dominant species require for maturation (Buma, Brown, Donato, Fontaine, & Johnstone, 2013).…”