Belcher Claire M
wildFIRE Lab, Hatherly Laboratories, University of Exeter, Prince of Wales Road, Exeter EX4 4PS, UK
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2016 Jun 5;371(1696). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0163.
Studies of palaeofire rely on quantifying the abundance of fossil charcoals in sediments to estimate changes in fire activity. However, gaining an understanding of the behaviour of palaeofires is also essential if we are to determine the palaeoecological impact of wildfires. Here, I use experimental approaches to explore relationships between litter fire behaviour and leaf traits that are observable in the fossil record. Fire calorimetry was used to assess the flammability of 15 species of conifer litter and indicated that leaf morphology related to litter bulk density and fuel load that determined the duration of burning and the total energy released. These data were applied to a fossil case study that couples estimates of palaeolitter fire behaviour to charcoal-based estimates of fire activity and observations of palaeoecological changes. The case study reveals that significant changes in fire activity and behaviour likely fed back to determine ecosystem composition. This work highlights that we can recognize and measure plant traits in the fossil record that relate to fire behaviour and therefore that further research is warranted towards estimating palaeofire behaviour as it can enhance our ability to interpret the palaeoecological impact of palaeofires throughout Earth's long evolutionary history.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.
古火灾研究依赖于量化沉积物中化石木炭的丰度来估计火灾活动的变化。然而，如果我们要确定野火的古生态影响，了解古火灾的行为也至关重要。在这里，我使用实验方法来探索在化石记录中可观察到的凋落物火灾行为与叶片性状之间的关系。燃烧量热法被用于评估15种针叶树凋落物的可燃性，结果表明叶片形态与凋落物堆积密度和燃料负荷相关，而这两者决定了燃烧持续时间和释放的总能量。这些数据被应用于一个化石案例研究，该研究将古凋落物火灾行为的估计与基于木炭的火灾活动估计以及古生态变化的观测相结合。该案例研究表明，火灾活动和行为的显著变化可能会产生反馈，从而决定生态系统的组成。这项工作强调，我们可以在化石记录中识别和测量与火灾行为相关的植物性状，因此有必要进一步研究估计古火灾行为，因为这可以增强我们解释古火灾在地球漫长进化历史中对古生态影响的能力。本文是主题为“火与人类的相互作用”特刊的一部分。
