Climate–fire interactions during the Holocene: a test of the utility of charcoal morphotypes in a sediment core from the boreal region of north-western Ontario (Canada)

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doi:10.1071/WF10117

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Climate–fire interactions during the Holocene: a test of the utility of charcoal morphotypes in a sediment core from the boreal region of north-western Ontario (Canada)

Melissa T. Moos ^A ^B and Brian F. Cumming ^A

^A Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory (PEARL), Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada.
^B Corresponding author. Email: melissa.t.moos@gmail.com

International Journal of Wildland Fire 21(6) 640-652 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF10117
Submitted: 21 October 2010 Accepted: 12 January 2012 Published: 27 June 2012





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Abstract

Charcoal accumulation rates and fire-return intervals were calculated from total charcoal and charcoal morphotypes over the Holocene, from a well-dated sediment core from Lake 239 located in north-western Ontario, and compared with previously published independent climate reconstructions. Both total and morphotype analysis show a two-to-three fold increase in accumulation rates in the early-to-mid Holocene (range: 1 to 6 pieces cm^–2 year^–1) compared with the early and late Holocene (range: 0 to 2 pieces cm^–2 year^–1). Fire-return intervals and fire frequencies calculated during these periods, based on peak analysis, showed very different trends. The fire-return interval based on Type M charcoal, a morphotype associated with primary charcoal deposition, was high during the early and late Holocene, and low from ~7500 to 4000 cal year BP, with high inferred fire frequency during the warm mid-Holocene (~12.5 fires per 1000 years), compared with <5 fires per 1000 years over the rest of the Holocene, whereas fire-return interval and fire frequency based on total charcoal did not show patterns consistent with climate. These results suggest that a two- to three-fold increase in fire frequency would not be unexpected in the future under a predicted warmer climate.

Additional keywords: Experimental Lakes Area, paleoclimate, prairie–boreal ecotone.

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