Fire, environmental and anthropogenic controls on pantropical tree cover

Kelley, Douglas I. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1413-4969; Gerard, France; Dong, Ning; Burton, Chantelle; Argles, Arthur; Li, Guangqi; Whitley, Rhys; Marthews, Toby R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3727-6468; Roberston, Eddy; Weedon, Graham P.; Lasslop, Gitta; Ellis, Richard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9667-7478; Bistinas, Ioannis; Veenendaal, Elmar. 2024 Fire, environmental and anthropogenic controls on pantropical tree cover. Communications Earth & Environment, 5, 714. 15, pp. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01869-8

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01869-8

Abstract/Summary

Explaining tropical tree cover distribution in areas of intermediate rainfall is challenging, with fire’s role in limiting tree cover particularly controversial. We use a novel Bayesian approach to provide observational constraints on the strength of the influence of humans, fire, rainfall seasonality, heat stress, and wind throw on tropical tree cover. Rainfall has the largest relative impact on tree cover (11.6–39.6%), followed by direct human pressures (29.8–36.8%), heat stress (10.5–23.3%) and rainfall seasonality (6.3–22.8%). Fire has a smaller impact (0.2–3.2%) than other stresses, increasing to 0.3–5.2% when excluding human influence. However, we found a potential vulnerability of eastern Amazon and Indonesian forests to fire, with up to 2% forest loss for a 1% increase in burnt area. Our results suggest that vegetation models should focus on fire development for emerging fire regimes in tropical forests and revisit the linkages between rainfall, non-fire disturbances, land use and broad-scale vegetation distributions.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01869-8
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Hydro-climate Risks (Science Area 2017-)
ISSN:	2662-4435
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.
Additional Keywords:	biogeography, carbon cycle, climate-change ecology, environmental impact
NORA Subject Terms:	Earth Sciences Ecology and Environment Data and Information
Related URLs:	Dataset Other
Date made live:	22 Nov 2024 12:18 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/538422

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01869-8

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Hydro-climate Risks (Science Area 2017-)

ISSN:

2662-4435

Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:

Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.

Additional Keywords:

biogeography, carbon cycle, climate-change ecology, environmental impact