351
Views
4
Downloads
12
Crossref
N/A
WoS
12
Scopus
0
CSCD
Cumulative impacts of wildfires and forest harvesting can cause shifts from closed-crown forest to open woodland in boreal ecosystems. To lower the probability of occurrence of such catastrophic regime shifts, forest logging must decrease when fire frequency increases, so that the combined disturbance rate does not exceed the Holocene maximum. Knowing how climate warming will affect fire regimes is thus crucial to sustainably manage the forest. This study aimed to provide a guide to determine sustainable forest harvesting levels, by reconstructing the Holocene fire history at the northern limit of commercial forestry in Quebec using charcoal particles preserved in lake sediments.
Sediment cores were sampled from four lakes located close to the northern limit of commercial forestry in Quebec. The cores were sliced into consecutive 0.5 cm thick subsamples from which 1 cm3 was extracted to count and measure charcoal particles larger than 150 microns. Age-depth models were obtained for each core based on accelerator mass spectroscopy (AMS) radiocarbon dates. Holocene fire histories were reconstructed by combining charcoal counts and age-depth models to obtain charcoal accumulation rates and, after statistical treatment, long-term trends in fire occurrence (expressed as number of fires per 1000 years).
Fire occurrence varied between the four studied sites, but fires generally occurred more often during warm and dry periods of the Holocene, especially during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (7000–3500 cal. BP), when fire occurrence was twice as high as at present.
The current fire regime in the study area is still within the natural range of variability observed over the Holocene. However, climatic conditions comparable to the Holocene Thermal Maximum could be reached within the next few decades, thus substantially reducing the amount of wood available to the forest industry.
Cumulative impacts of wildfires and forest harvesting can cause shifts from closed-crown forest to open woodland in boreal ecosystems. To lower the probability of occurrence of such catastrophic regime shifts, forest logging must decrease when fire frequency increases, so that the combined disturbance rate does not exceed the Holocene maximum. Knowing how climate warming will affect fire regimes is thus crucial to sustainably manage the forest. This study aimed to provide a guide to determine sustainable forest harvesting levels, by reconstructing the Holocene fire history at the northern limit of commercial forestry in Quebec using charcoal particles preserved in lake sediments.
Sediment cores were sampled from four lakes located close to the northern limit of commercial forestry in Quebec. The cores were sliced into consecutive 0.5 cm thick subsamples from which 1 cm3 was extracted to count and measure charcoal particles larger than 150 microns. Age-depth models were obtained for each core based on accelerator mass spectroscopy (AMS) radiocarbon dates. Holocene fire histories were reconstructed by combining charcoal counts and age-depth models to obtain charcoal accumulation rates and, after statistical treatment, long-term trends in fire occurrence (expressed as number of fires per 1000 years).
Fire occurrence varied between the four studied sites, but fires generally occurred more often during warm and dry periods of the Holocene, especially during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (7000–3500 cal. BP), when fire occurrence was twice as high as at present.
The current fire regime in the study area is still within the natural range of variability observed over the Holocene. However, climatic conditions comparable to the Holocene Thermal Maximum could be reached within the next few decades, thus substantially reducing the amount of wood available to the forest industry.
Ali AA, Carcaillet C, Bergeron Y (2009) Long-term fire frequency variability in the eastern Canadian boreal forest: the influences of climate vs. local factors. Global Change Biol 15:1230-1241
Bartlein PJ, Anderson KH, Anderson PM, Edwards ME, Mock CJ, Thompson RS, Webb RS, Webb T, Whitlock C (1998) Paleoclimate simulations for North America over the past 21, 000 years: features of the simulated climate and comparisons with paleoenvironmental data. Quaternary Sci Rev 17:549-585
Bergeron Y, Cyr D, Drever CR, Flannigan M, Gauthier S, Kneeshaw D, Lauzon È, Leduc A, Le Goff H, Lesieur D, Logan K (2006) Past, current, and future fire frequencies in Quebec's commercial forests: implications for the cumulative effects of harvesting and fire on age-class structure and natural disturbance-based management. Can J Forest Res 36:2737-2744
Bergeron Y, Cyr D, Girardin MP, Carcaillet C (2010) Will climate change drive 21st century burn rates in Canadian boreal forest outside of its natural variability: collating global climate model experiments with sedimentary charcoal data. Int J Wildland Fire 19:1127-1139
Bouchard M, Pothier D (2011) Long-term influence of fire and harvesting on boreal forest age structure and forest composition in Eastern Québec. Forest Ecol Manag 261:811-820
Boulanger Y, Gauthier S, Gray DR, Le Goff H, Lefort P, Morissette J (2013) Fire regime zonation under current and future climate over Eastern Canada. Ecol Appl 23:904-923
Bradshaw CJA, Warkentin IG, Sodhi NS (2009) Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity. Trends Ecol Evol 24:541-548
Cyr D, Gauthier S, Bergeron Y, Carcaillet C (2009) Forest management is driving the eastern North American boreal forest outside its natural range of variability. Front Ecol Environ 7:519-524
Dussart E, Payette S (2002) Ecological impact of clearcutting on black spruce-moss forests in Southern Québec. Ecoscience 9:533-543
Gajewski K (1988) Late Holocene climate changes in eastern North America estimated from pollen data. Quaternary Res 29:255-262
Garralla S, Gajewski K (1992) Holocene vegetation history of the boreal forest near Chibougamau, Central Quebec. Can J Bot 70:1364-1368
Gavin DG, Sheng HF, Lertzman K, Corbett P (2006) Weak climatic control of stand-scale fire history during the late Holocene. Ecology 87:1722-1732
Girard F, Payette S, Gagnon R (2008) Rapid expansion of lichen woodlands within the closed-crown boreal forest zone over the last 50 years caused by stand disturbances in Eastern Canada. J Biogeogr 35:529-537
Glew JR (1991) Miniature gravity corer for recovering short sediment cores. J Paleolimnol 5:285-287
Hély C, Girardin MP, Ali AA, Carcaillet C, Brewer S, Bergeron Y (2010) Eastern boreal North American wildfire risk of the past 7000 years: a model-data comparison. Geophys Res Lett 37:L14709
Higuera PE, Brubaker LB, Anderson PM, Hu FS, Brown TA (2009) Vegetation mediated the impacts of postglacial climatic change on fire regimes in the south-central Brooks Range, Alaska. Ecol Monogr 79:201-219
Hu FS, Brubaker LB, Gavin DG, Higuera PE, Lynch JA, Rupp TS, Tinner W (2006) How climate and vegetation influence the fire regime of the Alaskan Boreal biome: the Holocene perspective. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 11:829-846
Hunt BG (2006) The medieval warm period, the little ice age and simulated climatic variability. Clim Dynam 27:677-694
Jobidon R, Bergeron Y, Robitaille A, Raulier F, Gauthier S, Imbeau L, Saucier J-P, Boudreault C (2015) A biophysical approach to delineate a northern limit to commercial forestry: the case of Quebec's boreal forest. Can J Forest Res 45:515-528
Kivinen S, Berg A, Moen J, Östlund L, Olofsson J (2012) Forest fragmentation and landscape transformation in a reindeer husbandry area in Sweden. Environ Manag 49:295-304
Le Goff H, Flannigan M, Bergeron Y, Girardin MP (2007) Historical fire regime shifts related to climate teleconnections in the Waswanipi area, central Quebec, Canada. Int J Wildland Fire 16:607-618
Long C, Whitlock C, Bartlein PJ (2007) Holocene-scale variations in vegetation and fire history of the Oregon Coast Range, USA. The Holocene 17:917-926
Mansuy N, Gauthier S, Robitaille A, Bergeron Y (2010) The effects of surficial deposit-drainage combinations on spatial variations of fire cycles in the boreal forest of eastern Canada. Int J Wildland Fire 19:1083-1098
Oris F, Ali AA, Asselin H, Paradis L, Bergeron Y, Finsinger W (2014a) Charcoal dispersion and deposition in boreal lakes from 3 years of monitoring: Differences between local and regional fires. Geophys Res Lett 41:6743-6752
Oris F, Asselin H, Finsinger W, Hély C, Blarquez O, Ferland M-E, Bergeron Y, Ali AA (2014b) Long-term fire history in northern Quebec: implications for the northern limit of commercial forests. J Appl Ecol 51:675-683
Payette S (1993) The range limit of boreal tree species in Québec-Labrador: an ecological and palaeoecological interpretation. Rev Palaeobot Palyno 79:7-30
Plummer DA, Caya D, Frigon A, Côté H, Giguère M, Paquin D, Biner S, Harvey R, De Elia R (2006) Climate and climate change over North America as simulated by the Canadian RCM. J Climate 19:3112-3132
Raulier F, Le Goff H, Gauthier S, Rapanoela R, Bergeron Y (2013) Introducing two indicators for fire risk consideration in the management of boreal forests. Ecol Indic 24:451-461
Senici D, Lucas A, Chen HYH, Bergeron Y, Larouche A, Brossier B, Blarquez O, Ali AA (2013) Multi-millennial fire frequency and tree abundance differ between xeric and mesic boreal forests in central Canada. J Ecol 101:356-367
Viau AE, Gajewski K (2009) Reconstructing millennial-scale, regional paleoclimates of boreal Canada during the Holocene. J Climate 22:316-330
Viau AE, Gajewski K, Sawada MC, Fines P (2006) Millennial-scale temperature variations in North America during the Holocene. J Geophys Res 111:D09102
Wein RW, Burzynski MP, Sreenivasa BA, Tolonen K (1987) Bog profile evidence of fire and vegetation dynamics since 3000 years BP in the Acadian forest. Can J Bot 65:1180-1186
Wright HE Jr, Mann DH, Glaser PH (1984) Piston corers for peat and lake sediments. Ecology 65:657-659
We thank Loic Bircker, Laurent Bremond, Aurélie Genries and Raynald Julien for their assistance during fieldwork. Financial support was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by the CNRS (Paleo2, INSU).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.