Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Abrupt Climate-Independent Fire Regime Changes

  • Published:
Ecosystems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Wildfires have played a determining role in distribution, composition and structure of many ecosystems worldwide and climatic changes are widely considered to be a major driver of future fire regime changes. However, forecasting future climatic change induced impacts on fire regimes will require a clearer understanding of other drivers of abrupt fire regime changes. Here, we focus on evidence from different environmental and temporal settings of fire regimes changes that are not directly attributed to climatic changes. We review key cases of these abrupt fire regime changes at different spatial and temporal scales, including those directly driven (i) by fauna, (ii) by invasive plant species, and (iii) by socio-economic and policy changes. All these drivers might generate non-linear effects of landscape changes in fuel structure; that is, they generate fuel changes that can cross thresholds of landscape continuity, and thus drastically change fire activity. Although climatic changes might contribute to some of these changes, there are also many instances that are not primarily linked to climatic shifts. Understanding the mechanism driving fire regime changes should contribute to our ability to better assess future fire regimes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen CD, Savage M, Falk DA, Suckling KF, Swetnam TW, Schulke T, Stacey PB, Morgan P, Hoffman M, Klingel JT. 2002. Ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystems: a broad perspective. Ecol Appl 12:1418–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Archibald S, Staver AC, Levin SA. 2012. Evolution of human-driven fire regimes in Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:847–852.

  • Balch JK, Bradley BA, D’Antonio CM, Gómez-Dans J. 2013. Introduced annual grass increases regional fire activity across the arid western USA (1980–2009). Glob Change Biol 19:173–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnosky AD, Koch PL, Feranec RS, Wing SL, Shabel AB. 2004. Assessing the causes of late Pleistocene extinctions on the continents. Science 306:70–5.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bender EA, Case TJ, Gilpin ME. 1984. Perturbation experiments in community ecology: theory and practice. Ecology 65:1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Billings R, Clarke S, Espino-Mendoza V, Cordón-Cabrera P, Melendez-Figueroa B, Ramón-Campos J, Baeza G. 2004. Bark beetle outbreaks and fire: a devastating combination for Central America’s pine forests. Unasylva 217:15–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billings W. 1994. Ecological impacts of cheatgrass and resultant fire on ecosystems in the western Great Basin. In: Monsen SB, Kitchen SG, Eds. Ecology and management of annual rangelands. US Forest Service General Technical Report. Ogden, UT: Intermountain Research Station. p 22–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird MI, Hutley LB, Lawes MJ, Lloyd J, Luly JG, Ridd PV, Roberts RG, Ulm S, Wurster CM. 2013. Humans, megafauna and environmental change in tropical Australia. J Quat Sci 28:439–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bond WJ, Keeley JE. 2005. Fire as a global ‘herbivore’: the ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems. Trends Ecol Evol 20:387–94.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bond WJ, Midgley GF. 2012. Carbon dioxide and the uneasy interactions of trees and savannah grasses. Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 367:601–12.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bond WJ, Woodward FI, Midgley GF. 2005. The global distribution of ecosystems in a world without fire. New Phytol 165:525–38.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bowman DMJS, Balch J, Artaxo P, Bond WJ, Cochrane MA, D’Antonio CM, DeFries R, Johnston FH, Keeley JE, Krawchuk MA. 2011. The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth. J Biogeogr 38:2223–36.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bowman DMJS, Balch JK, Artaxo P, Bond WJ, Carlson JM, Cochrane MA, D’Antonio CM, DeFries RS, Doyle JC, Harrison SP, Johnston FH, Keeley JE, Krawchuk MA, Kull CA, Marston JB, Moritz MA, Prentice IC, Roos CI, Scott AC, Swetnam TW, van der Werf GR, Pyne SJ. 2009. Fire in the earth system. Science 324:481–4.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks ML, D’Antonio CM, Richardson DM, Grace JB, Keeley JE, DiTomaso JM, Hobbs RJ, Pellant M, Pyke D. 2004. Effects of invasive alien plants on fire regimes. Bioscience 54:677–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burney DA, Flannery TF. 2005. Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact. Trends Ecol Evol 20:395–401.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carcaillet C, Almquist H, Asnong H, Bradshaw RHW, Carrión JS, Gaillard MJ, Gajewski K, Haas JN, Haberle SG, Hadorn P, Muller SD, Richard PJH, Richoz I, Rosch M, Goni MFS, von Stedingk H, Stevenson AC, Talon B, Tardy C, Tinner W, Tryterud E, Wick L, Willis KJ. 2002. Holocene biomass burning and global dynamics of the carbon cycle. Chemosphere 49:845–63.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers JC, Devoe N, Evenden A, Eds. 2008. Collaborative management and research in the Great Basin—examining the issues and developing a framework for action. General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-204. Fort Collins, CO: Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheng Y. 2003. Effects of manipulated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations on carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes in southern California chaparral. Ph.D. theses, University of California, Davis and San Diego State University.

  • Christian HJ, Blakeslee RJ, Boccippio DJ, Boeck WL, Buechler DE, Driscoll KT, Goodman SJ, Hall JM, Koshak WJ, Mach DM, Stewart MF. 2003. Global frequency and distribution of lightning as observed from space by the Optical Transient Detector. J Geophys Res 108:1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coffman GC, Ambrose RF, Rundel PW. 2010. Wildfire promotes dominance of invasive giant reed (Arundo donax) in riparian ecosystems. Biol Invasions 12:2723–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conley MM, Kimball B, Brooks T, Pinter P Jr, Hunsaker D, Wall G, Adam N, LaMorte R, Matthias A, Thompson T. 2001. CO2 enrichment increases water-use efficiency in Sorghum. New Phytol 151:407–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Covington WW, Moore MM. 1994. Southwestern Ponderosa forest structure: changes since Euro-American settlement. J For 92:39–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daniau A-L, Sánchez Goñi MF, Martinez P, Urrego DH, Bout-Roumazeilles V, Desprat S, Marlon JR. 2013. Orbital-scale climate forcing of grassland burning in southern Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

  • Dantas VL, Batalha MA, Pausas JG. 2013. Fire drives functional thresholds on the savanna-forest transition. Ecology 94:2454–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Antonio CM, Vitousek PM. 1992. Biological invasions by exotic grasses, the grass/fire cycle and global change. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 23:63–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donato DC, Harvey BJ, Romme WH, Simard M, Turner MG. 2013. Bark beetle effects on fuel profiles across a range of stand structures in Douglas-fir forests of Greater Yellowstone. Ecol Appl 23:3–20.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dubinin M, Luschekina A, Radeloff VC. 2011. Climate, livestock, and vegetation: what drives fire increase in the arid ecosystems of Southern Russia? Ecosystems 14:547–62.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Faith JT, Surovell TA. 2009. Synchronous extinction of North America’s Pleistocene mammals. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:20641–5.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fuhlendorf SD, Engle DM, Kerby J, Hamilton R. 2008. Pyric herbivory: rewilding landscapes through the recoupling of fire and grazing. Conserv Biol 23:588–98.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gates D. 1964. Sagebrush infested by leaf defoliating moth. J Range Manag Arch 17:209–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gill JL, Williams JW, Jackson ST, Lininger KB, Robinson GS. 2009. Pleistocene megafaunal collapse, novel plant communities, and enhanced fire regimes in North America. Science 326:1100–3.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez-González S, Torres-Díaz C, Valencia G, Torres-Morales P, Cavieres LA, Pausas JG. 2011. Anthropogenic fires increase alien and native annual species in the Chilean coastal matorral. Divers Distrib 17:58–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haynes KJ, Allstadt AJ, Klimetzek D. 2014. Forest defoliator outbreaks under climate change: effects on the frequency and severity of outbreaks of five pine insect pests. Glob Change Biol . doi:10.1111/gcb.12506.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hicke JA, Johnson MC, Hayes JL, Preisler HK. 2012. Effects of bark beetle-caused tree mortality on wildfire. For Ecol Manage 271:81–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hiremath A, Sundaram B. 2005. The fire-lantana cycle hypothesis in Indian forests. Conserv Soc 3:26–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holdo RM, Sinclair ARE, Dobson AP, Metzger KL, Bolker BM, Ritchie ME, Holt RD. 2009. A disease-mediated trophic cascade in the Serengeti and its implications for ecosystem C. PLoS Biol 7:e1000210.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins MJ, Hebertson E, Page W, Jorgensen CA. 2008. Bark beetles, fuels, fires and implications for forest management in the Intermountain West. For Ecol Manage 254:16–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE. 2006. Fire management impacts on invasive plants in the western United States. Conserv Biol 20:375–84.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Aplet GH, Christensen NL, Conard SG, Johnson EA, Omi PN, Peterson DL, Swetnam TW. 2009. Ecological foundations for fire management in North American forest and shrubland ecosystems. PNW-GTR-779. Portland, OR: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. p 92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Baer-Keeley M, Fotheringham CJ. 2005. Alien plant dynamics following fire in mediterranean-climate California shrublands. Ecol Appl 15:2109–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Bond WJ, Bradstock RA, Pausas JG, Rundel PW. 2012. Fire in mediterranean ecosystems: ecology, evolution and management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Brennan TJ. 2012. Fire-driven alien invasion in a fire-adapted ecosystem. Oecologia 169:1043–52.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Pausas JG, Rundel PW, Bond WJ, Bradstock RA. 2011. Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping plant traits. Trends Plant Sci 16:406–11.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Knapp EE, Brennan TJ, Ballenger EA, Keeley JE. 2005. Fuel reduction and coarse woody debris dynamics with early season and late season prescribed fires in a Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forest. For Ecol Manage 208:383–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knick ST, Dobkin DS, Rotenberry JT, Schroeder MA, Vander Haegen WM, Van Riper III, C., 2003. Teetering on the edge or too late? Conservation and research issues for avifauna of sagebrush habitats. Condor 105:611–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kolar CS, Lodge DM. 2001. Progress in invasion biology: predicting invaders. Trends Ecol Evol 16:199–204.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mack MC, D’Antonio CM. 1998. Impacts of biological invasions on disturbance regimes. Trends Ecol Evol 13:195–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mandle L, Bufford J, Schmidt I, Daehler C. 2011. Woody exotic plant invasions and fire: reciprocal impacts and consequences for native ecosystems. Biol Invasions 13:1815–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marlon JR, Bartlein PJ, Carcaillet C, Gavin DG, Harrison SP, Higuera PE, Joos F, Power MJ, Prentice IC. 2008. Climate and human influences on global biomass burning over the past two millennia. Nat Geosci 1:697–702.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Marlon JR, Bartlein PJ, Daniau A-L, Harrison SP, Maezumi SY, Power MJ, Tinner W, Vanniére B. 2013. Global biomass burning: a synthesis and review of Holocene paleofire records and their controls. Quat Sci Rev 65:5–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marlon JR, Bartlein PJ, Gavin DG, Long CJ, Anderson RS, Briles CE, Brown KJ, Colombaroli D, Hallett DJ, Power MJ, Scharf EA, Walsh MK. 2012. Long-term perspective on wildfires in the western USA. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:E535–43.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Marlon JR, Bartlein PJ, Walsh MK, Harrison SP, Brown KJ, Edwards ME, Higuera PE, Power MJ, Anderson RS, Briles C, Brunelle A, Carcaillet C, Daniels M, Hu FS, Lavoie M, Long C, Minckley T, Richard PJH, Scott AC, Shafer DS, Tinner W, Umbanhowar CE, Whitlock C. 2009. Wildfire responses to abrupt climate change in North America. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:2519–24.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McWethy DB, Higuera PE, Whitlock C, Veblen TT, Bowman DMJS, Cary GJ, Haberle SG, Keane RE, Maxwell BD, McGlone MS, Perry GLW, Wilmshurst JM, Holz A, Tepley AJ. 2013. A conceptual framework for predicting temperate ecosystem sensitivity to human impacts on fire regimes. Global Ecol Biogeogr 22:900–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McWethy DB, Whitlock C, Wilmshurst JM, McGlone MS, Fromont M, Li X, Dieffenbacher-Krall A, Hobbs WO, Fritz SC, Cook ER. 2010. Rapid landscape transformation in South Island, New Zealand, following initial Polynesian settlement. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:21343–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moritz MA, Parisien M-A, Batllori E, Krawchuk MA, Van Dorn J, Ganz DJ, Hayhoe K. 2012. Climate change and disruptions to global fire activity. Ecosphere 3:1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nevle RJ, Bird DK. 2008. Effects of syn-pandemic fire reduction and reforestation in the tropical Americas on atmospheric CO2 during European conquest. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 264:25–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowacki GJ, Abrams MD. 2008. The demise of fire and “mesophication” of forests in the eastern United States. Bioscience 58:123–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paine RT, Tegner MJ, Johnson EA. 1998. Compounded perturbations yield ecological surprises. Ecosystems 1:535–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paquette A, Messier C. 2009. The role of plantations in managing the world’s forests in the Anthropocene. Front Ecol Environ 8:27–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG. 2004. Changes in fire and climate in the eastern Iberian Peninsula (Mediterranean basin). Clim Change 63:337–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Bradstock RA. 2007. Fire persistence traits of plants along a productivity and disturbance gradient in Mediterranean shrublands of SE Australia. Global Ecol Biogeogr 16:330–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Keeley JE. 2009. A burning story: the role of fire in the history of life. Bioscience 59:593–601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Fernández-Muñoz S. 2012. Fire regime changes in the Western Mediterranean Basin: from fuel-limited to drought-driven fire regime. Clim Change 110:215–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Paula S. 2012. Fuel shapes the fire–climate relationship: evidence from Mediterranean ecosystems. Global Ecol Biogeogr 21:1074–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Ribeiro E. 2013. The global fire–productivity relationship. Global Ecol Biogeogr 22:728–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson DW, Reich PB. 2001. Prescribed fire in oak savanna: fire frequency effects on stand structure and dynamics. Ecol Appl 11:914–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinter N, Fiedel S, Keeley JE. 2011. Fire and vegetation shifts in the Americas at the vanguard of Paleoindian migration. Quat Sci Rev 30:269–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson DM, Williams PA, Hobbs RJ. 1994. Pine invasion in the Southern Hemisphere: determinants of spread and invadability. J Biogeogr 21:511–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson GS, Pigott Burney L, Burney DA. 2005. Landscape paleoecology and megafaunal extinction in southeastern New York state. Ecol Monogr 75:295–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rolett B, Diamond J. 2004. Environmental predictors of pre-European deforestation on Pacific islands. Nature 431:443–6.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Savage M, Swetnam TW. 1990. Early 19th-century fire decline following sheep pasturing in a Navajo ponderosa pine forest. Ecology 71:2374–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheffer M, Carpenter S, Foley JA, Folke C, Walker B. 2001. Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. Nature 413:591–6.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Silvério DV, Brando PM, Balch JK, Putz FE, Nepstad DC, Oliveira-Santos C, Bustamante MMC. 2013. Testing the Amazon savannization hypothesis: fire effects on invasion of a neotropical forest by native cerrado and exotic pasture grasses. Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 368:1471–2970.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simard M, Romme WH, Griffin JM, Turner MG. 2011. Do mountain pine beetle outbreaks change the probability of active crown fire in lodgepole pine forests? Ecol Monogr 81:3–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simberloff D, Nuñez MA, Ledgard NJ, Pauchard A, Richardson DM, Sarasola M, Van Wilgen BW, Zalba SM, Zenni RD, Bustamante R, Peña E, Ziller SR. 2010. Spread and impact of introduced conifers in South America: lessons from other southern hemisphere regions. Austral Ecol 35:489–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Speer JH, Swetnam TW, Wickman BE, Youngblood A. 2001. Changes in pandora moth outbreak dynamics during the past 622 years. Ecology 82:679–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephens SL, Agee JK, Fulé PZ, North MP, Romme WH, Swetnam TW, Turner MG. 2013. Managing forests and fire in changing climates. Science 342:41–2.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor AH. 2007. Forest changes since Euro-American settlement and ecosystem restoration in the Lake Tahoe Basin, USA. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-GTR-203.

  • Van Auken O. 2000. Shrub invasions of North American semiarid grasslands. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 31:197–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Wagner CE. 1977. Conditions for the start and spread of crown fire. Can J For Res 7:23–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westerling AL, Hidalgo HG, Cayan DR, Swetnam TW. 2006. Warming and earlier spring increase western US forest wildfire activity. Science 313:940–3.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Westerling AL, Turner MG, Smithwick EAH, Romme WH, Ryan MG. 2011. Continued warming could transform Greater Yellowstone fire regimes by mid-21st century. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:13165–70.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson TN, Graham RC, Shouse PJ. 2004. Effects of a chaparral-to-grass conversion on soil physical and hydrologic properties after four decades. Geoderma 123:99–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work has been performed under the framework of the VIRRA and TREVOL projects (CGL2009-12048/BOS, CGL2012-39938-C02-01) from the Spanish government. CIDE (Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertificación; Desertification Research Center) is a joint institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the University of Valencia and Generalitat Valenciana. Any use of trade names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIDE-CSIC, Ctra. Naquera Km. 4.5 (IVIA), 46113, Montcada, Valencia, Spain

    Juli G. Pausas

  2. Sequoia-Kings Canyon Field Station, Western Ecological Research Center, US Geological Survey, Three Rivers, California, 93271, USA

    Jon E. Keeley

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, 90095, USA

    Jon E. Keeley

Authors
  1. Juli G. Pausas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jon E. Keeley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juli G. Pausas.

Additional information

Author contributions: JGP conceived the idea and sketched out the first rough draft, JGP and JEK contributed to subsequent drafts.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pausas, J.G., Keeley, J.E. Abrupt Climate-Independent Fire Regime Changes. Ecosystems 17, 1109–1120 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-014-9773-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-014-9773-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation