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Current and Future Fire Regimes and Their Influence on Natural Vegetation in Ethiopia

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Abstract

Fire is a major factor shaping the distribution of vegetation types. In this study, we used a recent high resolution map of potential natural vegetation (PNV) types and MODIS fire products to model and investigate the importance of fire as driver of vegetation distribution patterns in Ethiopia. We employed statistical modeling techniques to estimate the distribution of fire and the PNVs under current climatic conditions, and used the calibrated models to project distributions for different climate change scenarios. Results show a clear congruence between distribution patterns of fire and major vegetation types. The effect of climate change varies considerably between climate change models and scenarios, but as general trend expansions of moist Afromontane forest and Combretum–Terminalia woodlands were predicted. Fire-prone areas were also predicted to increase, and including this factor in vegetation distribution models resulted in stronger expansion of Combretum–Terminalia woodlands and a more limited increase of moist Afromontane forests. These results underline the importance of fire as a regulating factor of vegetation distribution patterns, and how fire needs to be factored into predict the possible effects of climate change. For conservation strategies to effectively address conservation challenges caused by rapid climate shifts, it is imperative that they not only consider the direct influence of climate changes on the vegetation, species species, or biodiversity patterns, but also the influence of future fire regimes.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank DANIDA for providing the funding of the work of Paulo van Breugel and the Carlsberg Foundation for supporting Ib Friis and Sebsebe Demissew’s field work in many parts of Ethiopia and Mikkel Lydholm Rasmussen for help in an initial phase of the acquisition of fire data.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest, Nature and Biomass, Department of Geosciences and Management of Natural Resources, Copenhagen University, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    P. van Breugel & Jens-Peter Barnekow Lillesø

  2. World Agroforestry Centre, P.O. Box 30677-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    P. van Breugel & Roeland Kindt

  3. Natural History Museum of Denmark, Sølvgade 83, Copenhagen, Denmark

    I. Friis

  4. The National Herbarium, Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 3434, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Sebsebe Demissew

Authors
  1. P. van Breugel
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  2. I. Friis
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  3. Sebsebe Demissew
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  4. Jens-Peter Barnekow Lillesø
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  5. Roeland Kindt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. van Breugel.

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Author contributions

PvB: Conceived and designed study, performed research, analyzed data, contributed new methods, wrote paper. IF: Conceived study, performed research, wrote paper. SD: Performed research, wrote paper. J-PL: Wrote paper. RK: Wrote paper.

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van Breugel, P., Friis, I., Demissew, S. et al. Current and Future Fire Regimes and Their Influence on Natural Vegetation in Ethiopia. Ecosystems 19, 369–386 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-015-9938-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-015-9938-x

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