NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Iniguez fire data from Rincon Peak RP03 - IMPD USRPK_03

Spatial and temporal patterns of fire history are affected by factors such as topography, vegetation, and climate. It is unclear, however, how these factors influenced fire history patterns in small isolated forests, such as that found on Rincon Peak, a “sky island” mountain range in southern Arizona, USA. We reconstructed the fire history of Rincon Peak to evaluate the influences of broad-scale (i.e., climate) versus local-scale (i.e., topographic) factors on fire occurrence and extent. We evaluated both fire scars and tree demography (natality and mortality) to investigate surface fire and crown fire events. The fire history of a 310 ha study area surrounding the top of Rincon Peak was reconstructed by tree-ring sampling in 21 plots. Between 1648 and 1763, spreading fires on Rincon Peak were controlled primarily by regional climate. Widespread surface fires occurred during drought years, and were generally synchronized with regional fire events known from an extensive network of other fire history studies. After 1763, fire extent was apparently limited by local factors (i.e., fuels) as frequent fires continued to burn, but were limited to the southern part of the study area until a widespread fire occurred in 1819. Landscape fires (i.e., fires that scarred ≥2 plots) were absent from the entire study area between 1819 and 1867 despite continued burning in adjacent mountain ranges. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the 1867 fire was both a surface and a stand-replacing event that killed most trees within a 60 ha patch. Our findings suggest that past climatic variations had important effects on fire regimes and age structures of small, fragmented ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) landscapes like Rincon Peak. Given anticipated climate changes, the rich biodiversity harbored in these steep, isolated landscapes will be critical habitat in the migration of species and should therefore be considered high conservation priority.

本存档古气候学研究数据集可通过美国国家海洋和大气管理局（National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA）下属的国家环境信息中心（National Centers for Environmental Information, NCEI）获取，该数据集隶属于古气候学世界数据服务（World Data Service for Paleoclimatology, WDS）。本研究对应的NCEI研究分类为火灾（Fire）。数据集涵盖火灾历史相关参数（火烧疤痕定年数据），其地理覆盖范围为美国亚利桑那州（Arizona）。数据集的时间跨度为距今382年至距今-54年（BP，即以1950年为基准的距今年份）。如需了解参数与研究地点的详细信息，请查阅元数据（metadata）说明。使用该数据集时，请引用本研究。