Fire history in southern Sweden during the past 11500 years: relationships with climate and human impact, and the role of fire in forest dynamics
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: Three bog sites in the province of Småland, S. Sweden, were studied for macrocharcoal and microcharcoal with the aim to reconstruct the Holocene fire history of the study region.In parallel, the local forest/vegetation histories at the three sites were inferred in quantitative terms (in percentage cover of plant taxa within the relevant source area of pollen RSAP) using the Sugita's Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA).Additional information on the fire history was obtained from findings of fire-dependant coleopteran, charred plant remains and identified large charcoal fragments.A synthesis of the results, complemented by a study of fire scars (1600-1900 AD) at one of the sites, provides detailed information on the regional and local fire history in terms of long-term trends in fire activity and, for some periods, fire frequency, intensity, and size.We also examined the importance of the vegetation composition as one of the causes behind differences between local fire histories at different locations.Moreover, archaeological records and earlier studies of past climatic conditions in the study region were used to discuss the role of human activities vs. climate characteristics.The results and conclusions from these studies were compared to similar investigations in Europe.
Institution: Linnaeus University
Language: English
Topic: Fire effects on ecosystems
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Climate action, Life on land
Open Access status: green
Funder: Linnéuniversitetet
OpenAlex ID: W108983591