INIBIOMA   20415
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN BIODIVERSIDAD Y MEDIOAMBIENTE
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
capítulos de libros
Título:
Fire history and fire regime shifts in Patagonia temperate forests
Autor/es:
MUNDO, I; PARITSIS, J; GONZALEZ, ME; HOLZ, A
Libro:
Dendroecology: Tree ring analyses applied to ecological studies
Editorial:
Springer
Referencias:
Año: 2017; p. 211 - 229
Resumen:
Fire has been a frequent disturbance in Patagonia. The presenceof charcoal in sedimentary records covering the last 44,000 yearssuggests that natural fires played a significant role in shaping thelandscape before the arrival of Native Americans ca 14,500?12,500 yearsago. Dendrochronological studies focused on the reconstruction offire histories have been conducted in the Patagonian forests on bothsides of the Andes Cordillera, beginning in the late 1990s. Here, wereview the present knowledge of the history of fires in temperateforests in Patagonia, their main drivers, and discuss the evidence andimpacts of burns and reburns on post-fire response, as well as possiblemechanisms to shift into alternative stable states. Dendrochronologywas extremely useful to develop multi-century fire histories inAraucaria araucana, Pilgerodendron uviferum, Fitzroya cupressoidesand Austrocedrus chilensis and mixed Austrocedrus-Nothofagusdombeyi forests in Patagonia. In the case of Araucaria, Austrocedrusand Pilgerodendron forests, dendrochronological reconstructions showdiverse and heterogeneous patterns of fire frequency related to changesin human activities and settlement processes over the last centuries. Firehistory reconstructions document infrequent events in the Fitzroya wetrainforests, with ca. 800-year old in the Costal Range in South-CentralChile and ca. 1000-year old chronologies in the Argentinean Andes.Climate variability has a significant influence on fire occurrence in thesePatagonian forests. Fire events have been strongly associated with lowmoisture availability linked to ENSO and the Southern Annular Mode(SAM), the major climate drivers promoting fire. Future directions andchallenges for fire history studies in Patagonian forests are proposed atthe end of this manuscript.