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Paleofire severity and vegetation change in the Cascade Range, Oregon, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas A. Minckley  and
Colin J. Long
Thomas A. Minckley*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Colin J. Long
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI 54901-8642, USA
*
⁎Corresponding author. Fax: +1 307 766 3294. E-mail address:[email protected] (T.A. Minckley).
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Abstract

Paleoecological research has expanded our knowledge of the relationships between climate, fire and vegetation. Fire can be a significant driver of forest composition and structure change, but identifying and quantifying fire regimes has been elusive. Using high-resolution charcoal analysis and pollen analysis we reconstructed a 13,200-year-old fire and vegetation history from Breitenbush Lake, Oregon, located in the central Cascade Range, USA. Our objective was to examine if fire occurrence and severity may have been a driver of Holocene forest-composition change. The data from this study suggests that while fire can create opportunities for successional process to occur, fire events were not significant catalysts for forest change. Instead, most major transitions at Breitenbush Lake occurred during prolonged fire-free intervals. Our results reinforce the view that climate is the major control of vegetation composition change in the Cascade Range.

Keywords

Cascade RangeEnvironmental changePacific NorthwestVegetation historyFire historyFire severitySubalpine Forest
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 85 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 211 - 217
Copyright
University of Washington

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