Long-term fire-vegetation change: data-based challenges

Session

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

15 Feb 2023, 09:00

MN09 (Faculty of Geoscience and Geography)

21. Keynote: Charcoal or no Charcoal? – An initial study of potential critical sources of error in the analysis of microcharcoal in Greenlandic palynological samples

Sascha Krüger (National Museum of Denmark, Environmental Archaeology and Materials Science)

15/02/2023, 09:00

Fire-vegetation interactions (Oral)

Oral

It is common practice to count charcoal particles alongside pollen and non‐pollen palynomorphs in palynological samples. The classification of material as charcoal is dependent upon a number of morphological criteria which, in certain geological zones like granitic and metamorphic areas, could be misclassified. In a preliminary study we tested the effects of different preparation techniques on...

14. A kaleidoscopic analysis of archival sedimentary macro-charcoal samples for reconstructing prehistoric and contemporary fire activity in South Africa

Abraham Dabengwa (GNOI)

15/02/2023, 09:20

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Online short talk

Charcoal from sedimentary archives is widely used to reconstruct landscape vegetation-fire relationships from modern and ancient landscapes. Digital image analysis is speeding up measurements of sedimentary macro-charcoal, (i.e., grains or particles > ~125—10 000µm). Fire reconstructions now boast higher spatial, temporal, and stratigraphic resolutions. Also, the scope of charcoal analysis has...

6. Using past analogues to understand role of fire and climate change in Central Indian forests

Krishna Pavan Kumar Komanduri (Department of Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India.)

15/02/2023, 09:35

Fire-vegetation interactions (Oral)

Online short talk

The nature of the relationship between fire and climate change is yet to be fully understood, especially in arid ecosystems. Our current scientific understanding states that higher the length, frequency, and severity of a dry season, higher the chances of biomass burning, further increasing the likelihood of warm and dry periods that are already projected in the near future. The degree of...

24. Mediterranean trait response to fire gradient

Dr Bérangère Leys (Institute of Mediterranean Biodiversity and Ecology)

15/02/2023, 09:50

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Oral

For the next decades, climate in Mediterranean region is expected to be 25% warmer over the year than the rest of the planet, likely causing higher fire risks, longer fire seasons and more frequent, large, and severe fires. Understanding the processes shaping plant communities under fire is a core challenge in ecology and conservation science in this area: Is there a scheme of plant trait...

16. The largest forest fire in the modern history of the Czech Republic: a long-term perspective through charcoal records

Dr Přemysl Bobek (Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

15/02/2023, 10:05

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Oral

A massive forest fire that affected 1,300 hectares of the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in 2022 has sparked debate about the increasing threat of wildfires to society and nature in the Czech Republic. The question arose, is this unprecedented event outside the historical range of variability of the fire regime in the area? Charcoal records have been collected from several sites,...

17. Assessing changes in global fire regimes via expert elicitation

Sara Sayedi (Brigham Young University)

15/02/2023, 10:20

Fire-vegetation interactions (Oral)

Online short talk

One of the most visible ways humans are affecting the environment is our modification of wildfires. Nearly every type of human activity influences wildfires, including agriculture, spreading invasive species, and changing the climate, creating serious consequences for human societies and their environment. However, predicting fire interactions with land use, management, and climate change,...

33. Discussion about fire-vegetation data and their application

15/02/2023, 10:35

15. Keynote: On FAIR Data and Samples

Mareike Wieczorek (Alfred Wegener Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung)

15/02/2023, 11:15

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Oral

In the last times, it became increasingly important to make data and also samples FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). Many Research Support Programs expect or encourage funded projects to make their results and data openly accessible. While open publications and data are commonly known, a more recent aspect are open samples. Physical samples or specimen are often at the...

29. The Global Paleofire Database - past, present, future

Elisabeth Dietze (Landscape Geoscience, Geographical Institute, University of Göttingen, Germany)

15/02/2023, 11:35

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Oral

The Global Paleofire Database (GPD) is a product of former PAGES Global Paleofire Working Groups and was also known as "Global Charcoal Database, GCD". It gathers sedimentary charcoal records from all over the globe in a accessible [repository][1] and is a community effort, mainly compiled for large-scale data syntheses projects.
Here, we present its history, current relevance and potential...

25. Keynote: The Neotoma Paleoecology Database – a brief history and outlook

Thomas Giesecke (Utrecht University)

15/02/2023, 11:50

Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Oral

Created towards the end of the 1980s, pollen databases were the first data repositories that were publically available and served as a place for long term storage and as a research tool. From the beginning the European Pollen Database was an international effort including a larger group of people with some steering and guidance from North American palynologists. Eric Grimm was one of the...

23. Keynote: Unraveling the power of using combined databases: some past, present and future examples

Graciela Gil-Romera (Pyrenean Institute of Ecology - IPE-CSIC)

15/02/2023, 12:10

Fire-vegetation interactions (Oral)

Oral

The use of databases to answer complex environmental questions has enabled a quantitative and qualitative leap on our knowledge on global change. One of the terrestrial processes that best articulates the impacts of global change is fire. It is a phenomenon that depends on climatic conditions and fuel availability so burning captures processes such as global warming or rural abandonment. The...

34. Discussion about paleodata-based challenges

15/02/2023, 12:30