Paleofire and Climate History in Siberia

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Local patterns of community changes are often embedded within larger regional scale processes. Interpretation of changes at the local scale are thus a function of regional level changes. Climatic fluctuation and land use practices are two regional level processes that affect local dynamics of forest community structure and biodiversity. This project will use dendro-ecological methods to reconstruct a multi-century, regional scale forest fire and climate history of southern taiga forests on the central Siberian Plateau. Fire scar and ring-width chronologies will be developed from a network of sites. The reconstructed fire and climate records will be used to assess temporal and spatial changes and trends in fire activity in association with centuries long fluctuations in climate and land use practices. Parallel studies of paleofire and climate histories in similar forests in the southwestern US and Sierra Nevada of California will provide comparative data for assessing differences and similarities of regional scale fire climatologies of semi-arid regions in North America and Siberia. %%% This long-term historical perspective will provide baseline data for models of future changes in forest communities driven by global change and human land-use practices. In addition, reconstruction of fire occurrence will be useful for assessing the importance of conifer forests as a source of atmospheric trace gases and particulates. Finally, the proposed research will strengthen collaborative scientiific relationships between US and Russian scientists.