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Divergent Fire Regimes in Two Contrasting Mediterranean Chestnut Forest Landscapes

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Abstract

Humans have historically played a critical role in the management of Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs) through traditional fire use. Although chestnut forests are widespread across the Mediterranean Basin, little is known about their historical fire regimes. Our goal here is to generate testable hypotheses about the drivers of fire regime dynamics in chestnut dominated ecosystems. To examine anthropogenic fire management we selected two sites in Spain that have similar biophysical characteristics but divergent levels of economic development and fire management policies. Fire regime-landscape feedbacks were characterized through a pilot dendroecological study, official fire statistics, aerial photography and forest inventory data. Our results suggest that fire incidence in both sites has increased since the pre-industrial era but fire season, fire size, and forest structure have changed to a greater extent in the more developed site. These changes are probably driven by the decline in annual anthropogenic burning of litterfall by local communities at the more developed site during the non-vegetative season.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by an Academic Outreach Engagement Grant from Middlebury College. F. Seijo would like to thank the municipal governments of Rozas de Puerto Real and Casillas - and particularly David Saugar and Daniel Moreno - for their kind and disinterested collaboration in the implementation of this research project. FS would also like to express his gratitude to Peter Fulé (Northern Arizona University) and Beatriz Pérez Ramos (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha) for their help in obtaining the official fire statistics for Casillas, and to Captain Jorge García Rodriguez (Spanish Army) for facilitating us access to aerial photographs. Middlebury College, Swarthmore and Pomona students Jacqueline Wyard-Yates, George Lampe, Nathaniel Truman and Heidi Yuan also contributed valuable insights for this study. J. Millington would like to acknowledge the Leverhulme Trust for his Early Career Fellowship, which funded his fieldwork in the study area. G. Sangüesa-Barreda’s and J.J. Camarero’ contributions to this study were supported by projects CGL2011-26654 (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IE School of International Relations, María de Molina 31 bis, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    Francisco Seijo

  2. Department of Geography, King’s College London, London, UK

    James D.A. Millington

  3. RW Gray Consulting Ltd, Chilliwack, Canada

    Robert Gray

  4. INIA-CIFOR, Ctra. La Coruña km 7.5, Madrid, Spain

    Laura Hernández Mateo

  5. Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avda. Montañana 1005, 50059, Zaragoza, Spain

    Gabriel Sangüesa-Barreda & J. Julio Camarero

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  1. Francisco Seijo
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  2. James D.A. Millington
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Correspondence to Francisco Seijo.

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Seijo, F., Millington, J.D., Gray, R. et al. Divergent Fire Regimes in Two Contrasting Mediterranean Chestnut Forest Landscapes. Hum Ecol 45, 205–219 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-016-9879-9

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