Understanding Fire-Human Dynamics Along a Forest-Steppe Ecotone

该研究项目提供了新的知识，并开发了新的方法来理解火灾作为一个全球性的重要过程，长期以来一直受到气候和人类的影响。 由于火灾是一种重要的自然干扰，火灾状况的改变会对脆弱的生态系统产生重大影响。 研究人员将制定新的战略，以推进从景观到区域尺度的过去人类环境动态研究。 该项目将提供新的视角、信息、见解和方法，以促进对美国和全球近期火灾以及长期火灾趋势的基本了解。 该项目还将提供有关生态系统复原力的重要见解，为世界各地脆弱生态区的保护和资源管理提供信息。 项目成果将提高公共机构的能力，更好地了解火灾的影响，并制定更有效的预防和缓解程序。该项目将使用新的生态系统建模方法来分析古生态和考古数据，以确定与人类有关的燃烧活动。 它将审查火灾的环境后果，并评估这种火灾的生物物理反馈。 研究人员将专注于全新世晚期，以更好地了解当时气候变化很大，人口在南半球增长和扩大时对火的控制。 他们将进行分析，以回答三个主要问题：（1）由气候和植被条件驱动的过去和现在的火灾制度的性质是什么？ (2)需要用火的不同土地使用做法的生态后果是什么？ (3)哪些潜在的植被反馈可能加强了故意燃烧策略？ 拟议的数据模型框架将有助于确定人类土地利用变化的重要性和气候中缓慢变化的驱动因素，并将有助于增进对中纬度气候变异和植被反馈的了解。 跨学科的方法将改善目前的定性古生态和考古重建，它将补充从美国和国际上正在进行的生态研究中获得的见解。

This research project contributes new knowledge and develops new approaches for understanding fire as a globally significant process, which has long been influenced by climate and humans. Because fire is an important natural disturbance, alterations of fire regimes can have significant impacts on vulnerable ecosystems. The investigators will develop new strategies to advance research about past human-environment dynamics from landscape to regional scales. The project will provide new perspectives, information, insights, and approaches to advance basic understanding of recent fires as well as long-term fire trends in the U.S. and globally. The project also will provide important insights about ecosystem resilience that can inform conservation and resource management of fragile ecoregions in various parts of the world. Project results will enhance the capacity of public agencies to better understand impacts of fire and to develop more effective preventive and mitigation procedures.The project will use new ecosystems modeling approaches to analyze paleoecological and archeological data in order to identify human-related burning activities. It will examine the environmental consequences of fire and assess the biophysical feedbacks of such fires. The investigators will focus on the late Holocene period to gain a better understanding of the controls of fire at a time when climate variability was high and human populations were growing and expanding in the southern hemisphere. They will conduct analyses to answer three main questions: (1) What is the nature of past and present fire regimes driven by climate and vegetation conditions? (2) What are the ecological consequences of different land-use practices that require fire? (3) What are the potential vegetation feedbacks that may have reinforced deliberate burning strategies? The proposed data-model framework will help to identify the importance of changes in human land use and slowly varying drivers in climate, and they will help enhance understanding of climate variability and vegetation feedbacks in the mid-latitudes. The interdisciplinary approach will improve current qualitative paleoecological and archeological reconstructions, and it will complement insights gained from ecological research underway in the U.S. and internationally.