Grassland fire ecology has roots in the late Miocene.

ABSTRACT: That fire facilitated the late Miocene C₄ grassland expansion is widely suspected but poorly documented. Fire potentially tied global climate to this profound biosphere transition by serving as a regional-to-local driver of vegetation change. In modern environments, seasonal extremes in moisture amplify the occurrence of fire, disturbing forest ecosystems to create niche space for flammable grasses, which in turn provide fuel for frequent fires. On the Indian subcontinent, C₄ expansion was accompanied by increased seasonal extremes in rainfall (evidenced by δ¹⁸O_carbonate), which set the stage for fuel accumulation and fire-linked clearance during wet-to-dry seasonal transitions. Here, we test the role of fire directly by examining the abundance a

SUBMITTER: Karp AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6275532 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature