Changing climate, vegetation, and fire disturbance in a sub-boreal pine-dominated forest, British Columbia, Canada

Holocene climate, vegetation, and fire history were reconstructed using pollen, molluscs, and charcoal from two lake sediment records (Scum and Norma lakes) collected from the Chilcotin Plateau, British Columbia, Canada. In the late-glacial period, cold steppe prevailed and fire was limited. Artemisia steppe expanded in the earliest Holocene as climate warmed and conditions became dry, with shallow basins drying out. High-frequency surface fires maintained the steppe. An increase in Pinus after 10 200 cal BP signals moistening and the establishment of Pinus ponderosa P. & C. Lawson and Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. stands, with surface fires in the former and higher severity fires in the latter. Cooling around 8500 cal BP favored P. contorta, and a crown fire regime likely prevailed, with intermittent surface fires. Shallow basins began to fill with water. In the mid-Holocene, basins filled further and Picea increased slightly in abundance. Fire frequency decreased, though severity increased. In the last...

[1]  K. Lertzman,et al.  Mixed-severity fire regimes in dry forests of southern interior British Columbia, Canada , 2012 .

[2]  A. H. Clarke.  The Freshwater Molluscs of Canada , 1995 .

[3]  Z. Gedalof,et al.  Differentiating mixed- and high-severity fire regimes in mixed-conifer forests of the Canadian Cordillera , 2015 .

[4]  M. Blaauw.  Methods and code for 'classical' age-modelling of radiocarbon sequences. , 2010 .

[5]  I. Walker,et al.  Midge-inferred Holocene climate history of two subalpine lakes in southern British Columbia, Canada , 2004 .

[6]  G. Schoups,et al.  Multi-millennial streamflow dynamics in two forested watersheds on Vancouver Island, Canada , 2015, Quaternary Research.

[7]  Cohmap Members.  Climatic changes of the last 18,000 years: observations and model simulations. , 1988, Science.

[8]  Thomas Giesecke,et al.  Holocene fire disturbance in the boreal forest of central Sweden , 2014 .

[9]  M. Ohlson,et al.  Invasion of Norway spruce diversifies the fire regime in boreal European forests , 2011 .

[10]  E. J. Cushing,et al.  Identification of Pine Pollen of Late Quaternary Age from the Chuska Mountains, New Mexico , 1973 .

[11]  E. Campbell,et al.  Projecting future distributions of ecosystem climate niches: Uncertainties and management applications , 2012 .

[12]  P. Richard,et al.  Future fire in Canada's boreal forest: paleoecology results and general circulation model--regional climate model simulations , 2001 .

[13]  J. Lynch,et al.  Geographic and temporal variations in fire history in boreal ecosystems of Alaska , 2002 .

[14]  P. Higuera,et al.  Biogeochemical impacts of wildfires over four millennia in a Rocky Mountain subalpine watershed. , 2014, The New phytologist.

[15]  Elizabeth A. Scharf.  A statistical evaluation of the relative influences of climate, vegetation, and prehistoric human population on the charcoal record of Five Lakes, Washington (USA) , 2010 .

[16]  E. Grimm.  CONISS: a FORTRAN 77 program for stratigraphically constrained cluster analysis by the method of incremental sum of squares , 1987 .

[17]  Y. Bergeron,et al.  Vegetation limits the impact of a warm climate on boreal wildfires. , 2013, The New phytologist.

[18]  D. Gavin,et al.  A Regional Perspective on Holocene Fire–Climate–Human Interactions in the Pacific Northwest of North America , 2015 .

[19]  M. Krawchuk,et al.  Implications of changing climate for global wildland fire , 2009 .

[20]  Zicheng Yu.  Ecosystem response to Lateglacial and early Holocene climate oscillations in the Great Lakes region of North America , 2000 .

[21]  G. J. Woodsworth,et al.  Improved age estimates for the White River and Bridge River tephras, western Canada , 1995 .

[22]  James K. Brown,et al.  Role of Fire in Lodgepole Pine Forests , 1985 .

[23]  Stephen T. Jackson,et al.  MODERN ANALOGS IN QUATERNARY PALEOECOLOGY: Here Today, Gone Yesterday, Gone Tomorrow? , 2004 .

[24]  J. Clague,et al.  Latest Pleistocene and Holocene glacier fluctuations in western Canada , 2009 .

[25]  R. Hebda.  Atmospheric Change, Forests and Biodiversity , 1998 .

[26]  A. Weaver,et al.  Detecting the effect of climate change on Canadian forest fires , 2004 .

[27]  C. Umbanhowar.  Interaction of fire, climate and vegetation change at a large landscape scale in the Big Woods of Minnesota, USA , 2004 .

[28]  D. Sprugel,et al.  Millennial-scale changes in local vegetation and fire regimes on Mount Constitution, Orcas Island, Washington, USA, using small hollow sediments , 2008 .

[29]  R. Hebda.  British Columbia Vegetation and Climate History with Focus on 6 ka BP , 2007 .

[30]  B. Hawkes,et al.  Influence of fire and mountain pine beetle on the dynamics of lodgepole pine stands in British Columbia, Canada , 2009 .

[31]  R. M. Strang,et al.  Conifer Encroachment on the Chilcotin Grasslands of British Columbia , 1980 .

[32]  G. Schoups,et al.  Holocene precipitation in the coastal temperate rainforest complex of southern British Columbia, Canada , 2006 .

[33]  Ken Lertzman,et al.  Climate Change and Culture Change on the Southern Coast of British Columbia 2400-1200 Cal. B.P.: An Hypothesis , 2005, American Antiquity.

[34]  F. Hu,et al.  Short Paper: A signal-to-noise index to quantify the potential for peak detection in sediment–charcoal records , 2011, Quaternary Research.

[35]  P. Bartlein,et al.  Peak detection in sediment–charcoal records: impacts of alternative data analysis methods on fire-history interpretations , 2010 .

[36]  K. Brown,et al.  Origin, development, and dynamics of coastal temperate conifer rainforests of southern Vancouver Island, Canada , 2002 .

[37]  J. H. Wright.  A Square-Rod Piston Sampler for Lake Sediments: NOTES , 1967 .

[38]  B. Hawkes,et al.  The genetic basis of cone serotiny in Pinus contorta as a function of mixed-severity and stand-replacement fire regimes , 2015, bioRxiv.

[39]  K. Brown,et al.  Postglacial evolution and spatial differentiation of seasonal temperate rainforest in western Canada , 2008 .

[40]  A. Arsenault,et al.  Dry forests in the Southern Interior of British Columbia: Historic disturbances and implications for restoration and management , 2008 .

[41]  J. Lynch,et al.  Forest fire and climate change in western North America: insights from sediment charcoal records , 2007 .

[42]  J. Smol,et al.  Midge- and diatom-based palaeosalinity reconstructions for Mahoney Lake, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada , 1997 .

[43]  M. Pellatt,et al.  Paleoecology of postglacial tree line fluctuations on the Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada , 1994 .

[44]  M. Moritz,et al.  Global Pyrogeography: the Current and Future Distribution of Wildfire , 2009, PloS one.

[45]  R. Hebda,et al.  Modem pollen spectra from west central British Columbia , 1993 .

[46]  K. Lertzman,et al.  An 1800-year record of the spatial and temporal distribution of fire from the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada , 2003 .

[47]  R. Guthrie,et al.  Denudation and landslides in coastal mountain watersheds: 10,000 years of erosion , 2008 .

[48]  K. Brown,et al.  Ancient Fires on Southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada: A Change in Causal Mechanisms at about 2,000 ybp , 2002 .

[49]  K. Lertzman,et al.  HOLOCENE FIRE HISTORY OF A COASTAL TEMPERATE RAIN FOREST BASED ON SOIL CHARCOAL RADIOCARBON DATES , 2003 .

[50]  V. Gond,et al.  Tracking land-cover changes with sedimentary charcoal in the Afrotropics , 2013 .

[51]  M. Pellatt,et al.  Holocene Tree Line and Climate Change on the Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada , 1997, Quaternary Research.

[52]  Z. Gedalof,et al.  Environmental change in Garry oak (Quercus garryana) ecosystems: the evolution of an eco-cultural landscape , 2014, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[53]  T. Lacourse,et al.  Holocene vegetation history and fire regimes of Pseudotsuga menziesii forests in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, southwestern British Columbia, Canada , 2013, Quaternary Research.

[54]  K. Lertzman,et al.  11 000 years of fire history and climate in the mountain hemlock rain forests of southwestern British Columbia based on sedimentary charcoal , 2003 .

[55]  R. Mathewes,et al.  A 12 000 year palynological record of temperature and precipitation trends in southwestern British Columbia , 1981 .

[56]  C. Umbanhowar,et al.  Experimental production and analysis of microscopic charcoal from wood, leaves and grasses , 1998 .

[57]  M. Flannigan,et al.  Future Area Burned in Canada , 2005 .