Short-interval fires increasing in the Alaskan boreal forest as fire self-regulation decays across forest types.

ABSTRACT: Climate drivers are increasingly creating conditions conducive to higher frequency fires. In the coniferous boreal forest, the world's largest terrestrial biome, fires are historically common but relatively infrequent. Post-fire, regenerating forests are generally resistant to burning (strong fire self-regulation), favoring millennial coniferous resilience. However, short intervals between fires are associated with rapid, threshold-like losses of resilience and changes to broadleaf or shrub communities, impacting carbon content, habitat, and other ecosystem services. Fires burning the same location 2 + times comprise approximately 4% of all Alaskan boreal fire events since 1984, and the fraction of short-interval events (< 20 years between fires) is increasing with time. While there is str

SUBMITTER: Buma B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8941092 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature