Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T17:42:38.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Regionalization of fire regimes in the Central Rocky Mountains, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Vachel A. Carter ,
Andrea Brunelle ,
Thomas A. Minckley ,
Philip E. Dennison  and
Mitchell J. Power
Vachel A. Carter*
Affiliation:
RED Lab, Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Andrea Brunelle
Affiliation:
RED Lab, Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Thomas A. Minckley
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Philip E. Dennison
Affiliation:
URSA Lab, Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Mitchell J. Power
Affiliation:
Utah Museum of Natural History, Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail address:vachel.carter@gmail.com (V.A. Carter).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Fire is one of the most important natural disturbances in the coniferous forests of the US Rocky Mountains. The Rocky Mountains are separated by a climatic boundary between 40° and 45° N, which we refer to as the central Rocky Mountains (CRM). To determine whether the fire regime from the CRM was more similar to the northern Rocky Mountains (NRM) or southern Rocky Mountains (SRM) during the Holocene, a 12,539-yr-old sediment core from Long Lake, Wyoming, located in the CRM was analyzed for charcoal and pollen. These data were then compared to charcoal records from the CRM, NRM and SRM. During the Younger Dryas chronozone, the fire regime was characterized as frequent at Long Lake. The early and middle Holocene fire regime was characterized as infrequent. A brief interval from 4000 to 3000 cal yr BP, termed the Populus period, had a frequent fire regime and remained frequent through the late Holocene at Long Lake. In comparison to sites from the NRM and SRM, the fire regime at Long Lake was most similar to the SRM during the past 12,539 cal yr BP. These results suggest the disturbance regime in the CRM has a greater affinity with those of the SRM.

Keywords

CharcoalFirePollenVegetationClimateClimatic boundaryLake sedimentsPaleoecology
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 406 - 416
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, R.S., Allen, C.D., Toney, J.L., Jass, R.B., Bair, A.N., (2008). Holocene vegetation and fire regimes in subalpine and mixed conifer forests, southern Rocky Mountains, USA. International Journal of Wildland Fire 17, 96–114.Google Scholar
Atwood jr., W.W., (1937). Records of Pleistocene glaciers in the Medicine Bow and Park Ranges. Journal of Geology 45, 2 113–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, W., (2009). Fire Ecology in Rocky Mountain Landscapes. Island Press, Washington.Google Scholar
Bartlein, P.J., Anderson, K.H., Anderson, P.M., Edwards, M.E., Mock, C.J., Thompson, R.S., Webb III, R.S., Whitlock, C., (1998). Paleoclimatic simulations for North America over the past 21,000 years: features of the simulated climate and comparisons with paleoenvironmental data. Quaternary Science Reviews 17, 549–585.Google Scholar
Blaauw, M., (2010). Methods and code for ‘classical’ age-modeling of radiocarbon sequences. Quaternary Geochronology 5, 512–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briles, C.E., Whitlock, C., Meltzer, D.J., (2012). Last glacial–interglacial environments in the southern Rocky Mountains, USA and implications for Younger Dryas-age human occupation. Quaternary Research 77, 96–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunelle, A., Minckley, T.A., Lips, E., Burnett, P., (2013). A record of late glacial–Holocene environmental change from a high elevation site in the Intermountain West. Journal of Quaternary Science 28, 103–112.Google Scholar
Brunelle, A., Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P.J., Kipfmueller, K., (2005). Holocene fire and vegetation along environmental gradients in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Quaternary Science Reviews 24, 2281–2300.Google Scholar
Burns, , Russell, M., Honkala, , Barbara tech., H., coords., . (1990). Silvics of North: 1. Conifers; 2. Hardwoods. Agriculture Handbook 654. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC. vol. 2, , pp. 877.Google Scholar
Carter, V.A., (2010). A paleoecological fire and vegetation history in Southeastern Wyoming. (MS Thesis)University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.Google Scholar
Clark, J.S., (1988). Particle motion and the theory of stratigraphic charcoal analysis: source area, transportation, deposition, and sampling. Quaternary Research 30, 81–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conroy, J.L., Overpeck, J.T., Cole, J.E., Shanahan, T.M., Steinitz-Kannan, M., (2008). Holocene changes in eastern tropical Pacific climate inferred from a Galápagos lake sediment record. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, 1166–1180.Google Scholar
Dale, V.H., Joyce, L.A., McNulty, S., Neilson, R.P., Ayres, M.P., Flannigan, M.D., Hanson, P.J., Irland, L.C., Lugo, A.E., Peterson, C.J., Simberloff, D., Swanson, F.J., Stocks, B.J., Wotton, M., (2001). Climate change and forest disturbances. BioScience 50, 723–734.Google Scholar
Dettinger, M.D., Cayan, D., Diaz, H., Meko, D., (1998). North°South precipitation in western North America on interannual-to-decadal timescales. Journal of Climate 11, 3095–3111.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faegri, K., Kaland, P.E., Kzywinski, K., (1989). Textbook of Pollen Analysis. Wiley, New York.323.Google Scholar
Gardner, J.J., Whitlock, C., (2001). Charcoal accumulation following a recent fire in the Cascade Range, northwestern USA and its relevance for fire-history studies. The Holocene 11, 541–549.Google Scholar
Grimm, Eric. (1987). CONISS: A fortran 77 program for stratigraphically constrained cluster analysis by the method of incremental sum of squares. Computers and Geosciences 13, 1 13–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higuera, P.E., Brubaker, L.B., Anderson, P.M., Hu, F.S., Brown, T.A., (2009). Vegetation mediated the impacts of postglacial climate change on fire regimes in the south-central Brooks Range, Alaska. Ecological Monographs 7, 2 201–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huerta, M., Whitlock, C., Yale, J., (2009). Holocene vegetation–fire–climate linkages in northern Yellowstone National Park, USA. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 271, 170–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jimenez-Moreno, G., Anderson, S., Atudorei, V., Toney, J., (2011). A high-resolution record of climate, vegetation and fire in the mixed conifer forest of northern Colorado (USA). Geological Society of America 123, 240–254.Google Scholar
Johnson, B.G., Gonzalo, J.-M., Eppes, M.C., Diemer, J.A., Stone, J.R., (2013). A multiproxy record of postglacial climate variability from a shallowing 12-m deep sub-alpine bog in the southeastern San Juan Mountains of Colorado, USA. The Holocene 23, 7 1028–1038.Google Scholar
Kulakowski, D., Veblen, T.T., Drinkwater, S., (2004). The persistence of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) in the Grand Mesa Area, Colorado. Ecological Applications 14, 5 1603–1614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kutzbach, J., Gallimore, R., Harrison, S., Behling, P., Selin, R., Laarif, F., (1998). Climate and biome simulations for the past 21,000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews 17, 473–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Y., Brewer, S., Booth, R.K., Minckley, T.A., Jackson, S.T., (2012). Temporal density of pollen sampling affects age determination of the mid-Holocene hemlock (Tsuga) decline. Quaternary Science Reviews 45, 54–59.Google Scholar
Lyle, M., Heusser, L., Ravelo, C., Yamamoto, M., Barron, J., Diffenbaugh, N.S., Herbert, T., Andreasen, D., (2012). Out of the Tropics: The Pacific, Great Basin Lakes, and Late Pleistocene Water Cycle in the Western United States. Science 337, 1629–1633.Google Scholar
Millspaugh, S.H., Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P.J., (2000). Variations in fire frequency and climate over the past 17 000 yr in central Yellowstone National Park. Geology 28, 211–214.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millspaugh, S.H., Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P.J., (2004). Postglacial fire, vegetation, and climate history of the Yellowstone-Lamar and Central Plateau provinces, Yellowstone National Park. Wallace, L. After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park. Yale University Press, 10–28.Google Scholar
Minckley, T.A., Shriver, R.K., (2011). Vegetation responses to large-scale fires in a Rocky Mountain forest. Fire Ecology 7, 2 66–80.Google Scholar
Minckley, T.A., Shriver, R.K., Shuman, B., (2012). Resilience and regime change in a southern Rocky Mountain ecosystem during the past 17,000 years. Ecological Monographs 82, 49–68.Google Scholar
Minckley, T.A., Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P.J., (2007). Vegetation, fire, and climate history of the northwestern Great Basin during the last 14,000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews 26, 2167–2184.Google Scholar
Mock, C.J., (1996). Climatic controls and spatial variations of precipitation in the western United States. Journal of Climate 9, 1111–1125.Google Scholar
Moy, C.M., Seltzer, G.O., Rodbell, D.T., Anderson, D.M., (2002). Variability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation activity at millennial timescales during the Holocene epoch. Nature 420, 162–165. NOAA (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/impd/paleofire.html ) http://hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov/pls/paleox/f?p=519:1:::::P1_STUDY_ID:2260 accessed May 10, 2013; http://hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov/pls/paleox/f?p=519:1:::::P1_STUDY_ID:2261 accessed May 10, 2013.Google Scholar
NRCS, unpublished data, http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/nwcc/site?sitenum=731&state=wy (Accessed June 13, 2012).Google Scholar
Sangster, A.G., Dale, H.M., (1964). Pollen grain preservation of underrepresented species in fossil spectra. Canadian Journal of Botany 42, 437–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoennagel, T., Veblen, T., Romme, R., Sibold, J., Cook, E., (2005). ENSO and PDO variability affect drought-induced fire occurrence in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Ecological Applications 15, 6 2000–2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shinker, J.J., (2010). Visualizing spatial heterogeneity of western U.S. climate variability. Earth Interactions 14, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shuman, B., Pribyl, P., Minckley, T.A., Shinker, J.J., (2010). Rapid hydrologic shifts and prolonged droughts in Rocky Mountain headwaters during the Holocene. Geophysical Research Letters 37, L06701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuvier, M., Reimer, P.J., Braziunas, T.F., (1998). High-precision radiocarbon age calibration terrestrial and marine samples. Radiocarbon 40, 3 1127–1151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swetnam, T.W., Betancourt, J.L., (1998). Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American southwest. Journal of Climate 11, 3128–3147.Google Scholar
Thompson, R.S., Anderson, K.H., Bartlein, P.J., (1999). Atlas of relations between climatic parameters and distributions of important trees and shrubs in North America. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1650 A&B. (http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1650-b/ > accessed May 26, 2013).Google Scholar
US Forest Service, unpublished data, http://www.sangres.com/wyoming/national-forests/medicinebow/fishing/index.htm Accessed June 13, 2012.Google Scholar
Westerling, A.L., Gershunov, A., Brown, T.J., Cayan, D.R., Dettinger, M.D., (2003). Climate and wildfire in the western United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84, 595–604.Google Scholar
Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P.J., (1993). Spatial variations of Holocene climatic change in the Yellowstone region. Quaternary Research 39, 231–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitlock, C., Briles, C.E., Fernandez, M.C., Gage, J., (2011). Holocene vegetation, fire and climate history of the Sawtooth Range, central Idaho, USA. Quaternary Research 75, 1 114–124.Google Scholar
Wise, E.K., (2010). Spatiotemporal variability of the precipitation dipole transition zone in the western United States. Geophysical Research Letters 37, L07706 10.1029/2009GL042193.Google Scholar