Speaker
Description
Over the past decades, large and uncontrolled wildfires have occurred in all terrestrial ecosystems. Global warming may amplify this trend and threaten most ecosystems worldwide for the next decades. Alterations of fire regimes may affect fire-prone systems and forest ecosystems that have not historically experienced fires, such as the European beech forests. Understanding the long-term dynamics of these high-plant-diversity beech forests is crucial to anticipate changes in these ecosystems in the ongoing global warming. This study aims to understand how European beech forests have colonized inner Eastern Carpathians (Slovakia) and the main factors explaining their high biodiversity.
We applied a multi-proxy approach involving charcoal, pollen, and macrofossil analyses. We used palynological richness, evenness, and turnover variation compared to the charcoal peak detection analysis.
Low-diversity spruce forest was dominant until 5200 cal. BP during a fire-prone period
mainly due to climatic conditions. The establishment of late-successional, shade-tolerant Fagus sylvatica was facilitated by fire disturbances, but its expansion coincided with major gaps in fire events from 3900 cal. BP. The palynological richness has increased during the transition from spruce to beech forest, highlighting the importance of beech forests in maintaining plant biodiversity. However, the stronger increase of the richness is synchronous with the increase in human activities around 2000 cal. BP, and then 350 cal. BP.
Low-frequency fires have been a natural driver of vegetation changes in the Carpathians
by promoting the emergence of highly diversified beech forests. However, human impact has later also shaped these landscapes.
