Relationships between change in fire frequency and mortality due to spruce budworm outbreak in the southeastern Canadian boreal forest

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
Alain Leduc
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Spruce Budworm ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest ◽  
In Fire

scholarly journals Resilience of the boreal forest in response to Holocene fire-frequency changes assessed by pollen diversity and population dynamics

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1026 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Carcaillet ◽  
Pierre J. H. Richard ◽  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
Bianca Fréchette ◽  
Adam A. Ali
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Boreal Forests ◽  
Frequency Control ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Frequency Changes ◽  
Fire Intervals ◽  
In Fire

The hypothesis that changes in fire frequency control the long-term dynamics of boreal forests is tested on the basis of paleodata. Sites with different wildfire histories at the regional scale should exhibit different vegetation trajectories. Mean fire intervals and vegetation reconstructions are based respectively on sedimentary charcoal and pollen from two small lakes, one in the Mixedwood boreal forests and the second in the Coniferous boreal forests. The pollen-inferred vegetation exhibits different trajectories of boreal forest dynamics after afforestation, whereas mean fire intervals have no significant or a delayed impact on the pollen data, either in terms of diversity or trajectories. These boreal forests appear resilient to changes in fire regimes, although subtle modifications can be highlighted. Vegetation compositions have converged during the last 1200 years with the decrease in mean fire intervals, owing to an increasing abundance of boreal species at the southern site (Mixedwood), whereas changes are less pronounced at the northern site (Coniferous). Although wildfire is a natural property of boreal ecosystems, this study does not support the hypothesis that changes in mean fire intervals are the key process controlling long-term vegetation transformation. Fluctuations in mean fire intervals alone do not explain the historical and current distribution of vegetation, but they may have accelerated the climatic process of borealisation, likely resulting from orbital forcing.

Long-term fire frequency variability in the eastern Canadian boreal forest: the influences of climate vs. local factors

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 1230-1241 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAM A. ALI ◽  
CHRISTOPHER CARCAILLET ◽  
YVES BERGERON
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest

Is regulated even-aged management the right strategy for the Canadian boreal forest?

2004 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 458-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bergeron
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Stand Age ◽  
Old Growth ◽  
Old Growth Forests ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in the development of forest management approaches that are based on an understanding of historical natural disturbance dynamics. The rationale for such an approach is that management to favour landscape compositions and stand structures similar to those of natural ecosystems should also maintain biological diversity and essential ecological functions. In fire-dominated landscapes, this approach is possible only if current and future fire frequencies are sufficiently low, in comparison to pre-industrial fire frequency, that we can substitute fire with forest management. I address this question by comparing current and future fire frequency to historical reconstruction of fire frequency from studies in the Canadian boreal forest. Current and simulated future fire frequencies using 2× and 3×CO2 scenarios are lower than the historical fire frequency for most sites, suggesting that forest management could potentially be used to recreate the forest age structure of fire-controlled pre-industrial landscapes. Current even-aged management, however, tends to reduce forest variability: for example, fully regulated, even-aged management will tend to truncate the natural forest stand age distribution and eliminate overmature and old-growth forests from the landscape. The development of silvicultural techniques that maintain a spectrum of forest compositions and structures at different scales in the landscape is one avenue to maintain this variability. Key words: boreal forest, even aged management, fire regime, old-growth forests, climate change, partial cutting

scholarly journals The pyrogeography of eastern boreal Canada from 1901 to 2012 simulated with the LPJ-LMfire model

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 1273-1292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emeline Chaste ◽  
Martin P. Girardin ◽  
Jed O. Kaplan ◽  
Jeanne Portier ◽  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Net Primary Productivity ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Spatiotemporal Patterns ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Dynamic Global Vegetation Model ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
In Fire

Abstract. Wildland fires are the main natural disturbance shaping forest structure and composition in eastern boreal Canada. On average, more than 700 000 ha of forest burns annually and causes as much as CAD 2.9 million worth of damage. Although we know that occurrence of fires depends upon the coincidence of favourable conditions for fire ignition, propagation, and fuel availability, the interplay between these three drivers in shaping spatiotemporal patterns of fires in eastern Canada remains to be evaluated. The goal of this study was to reconstruct the spatiotemporal patterns of fire activity during the last century in eastern Canada's boreal forest as a function of changes in lightning ignition, climate, and vegetation. We addressed this objective using the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-LMfire, which we parametrized for four plant functional types (PFTs) that correspond to the prevalent tree genera in eastern boreal Canada (Picea, Abies, Pinus, Populus). LPJ-LMfire was run with a monthly time step from 1901 to 2012 on a 10 km2 resolution grid covering the boreal forest from Manitoba to Newfoundland. Outputs of LPJ-LMfire were analyzed in terms of fire frequency, net primary productivity (NPP), and aboveground biomass. The predictive skills of LPJ-LMfire were examined by comparing our simulations of annual burn rates and biomass with independent data sets. The simulation adequately reproduced the latitudinal gradient in fire frequency in Manitoba and the longitudinal gradient from Manitoba towards southern Ontario, as well as the temporal patterns present in independent fire histories. However, the simulation led to the underestimation and overestimation of fire frequency at both the northern and southern limits of the boreal forest in Québec. The general pattern of simulated total tree biomass also agreed well with observations, with the notable exception of overestimated biomass at the northern treeline, mainly for PFT Picea. In these northern areas, the predictive ability of LPJ-LMfire is likely being affected by the low density of weather stations, which leads to underestimation of the strength of fire–weather interactions and, therefore, vegetation consumption during extreme fire years. Agreement between the spatiotemporal patterns of fire frequency and the observed data across a vast portion of the study area confirmed that fire therein is strongly ignition limited. A drier climate coupled with an increase in lightning frequency during the second half of the 20th century notably led to an increase in fire activity. Finally, our simulations highlighted the importance of both climate and fire in vegetation: despite an overarching CO2-induced enhancement of NPP in LPJ-LMfire, forest biomass was relatively stable because of the compensatory effects of increasing fire activity.

scholarly journals Variability in Fire Frequency and Forest Composition in Canada's Southeastern Boreal Forest: A Challenge for Sustainable Forest Management

1998 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
Pierre J.H. Richard ◽  
Christopher Carcaillet ◽  
Sylvie Gauthier ◽  
Mike Flannigan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Sustainable Forest Management ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Forest Composition ◽  
In Fire

Long-term reconstruction of the fire season in the mixedwood boreal forest of Western Canada

1999 ◽  
Vol 77 (8) ◽  
pp. 1185-1188 ◽  
Author(s):  
E A Johnson ◽  
K Miyanishi ◽  
N O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Pinus Banksiana ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Fire Scars ◽  
Fire Cycle ◽  
Modelling Studies ◽  
Prince Albert National Park ◽  
In Fire

Climate modelling studies have predicted an increase in fire frequency with global warming as well as suggesting a longer fire season occurring later in the year. We used 160 years of fire scars in Pinus banksiana Lamb. dating from 1831 to 1948 and written fire records from 1927 to 1995 for Prince Albert National Park in the southern boreal forest to look for evidence of changes in the duration and timing of the fire season (defined as the months when large areas burn) that may have accompanied past changes in fire frequency. The Park's time-since-fire distribution had indicated two such changes: one around 1890 and the other around 1945, both in the direction of decreasing fire frequency. Both fire scars and written fire records indicated that the dominance of the spring fire season (April-June) has remained unchanged over the past 160 years. A small number of scars suggested that the fire season may have extended slightly into the summer (July) prior to 1890 when the fire cycle was much shorter and that the fire season may have shifted to a slightly earlier spring start after 1945 when the fire cycle was much longer.Key words: fire season, boreal forest, fire frequency.

Past, Current and Future Fire Frequency in the Canadian Boreal Forest: Implications for Sustainable Forest Management

AMBIO ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 356-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
Mike Flannigan ◽  
Sylvie Gauthier ◽  
Alain Leduc ◽  
Patrick Lefort
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Sustainable Forest Management ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest
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