{"title":"Spatial distribution of charcoal in topsoil and its potential determinants on the Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Yixuan Wang, Chaoqun Cao, Yanrong Zhang, Lina Liu, Nannan Wang, Wenjia Li, Xianyong Cao","doi":"10.1007/s11707-023-1095-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>As an important proxy for investigating past fire activities, charcoal is often used to explore the characteristics of fire distribution and its relationships with vegetation, climate, and human activities. Research into the spatial distribution and environmental determinants for charcoal, however, is still limited. In this study, we identified and counted charcoal from topsoil samples covering the Tibetan Plateau using the pollen methodology, and investigated its relationships with vegetation net primary production (NPP), elevation, climate (precipitation, mean temperature of the coldest month and warmest month) and human population by boosted regression trees (BRT). Results reveal that the concentration of microscopic charcoal, macroscopic charcoal, and total charcoal all increase from south-west to north-east, which is consistent with the trend that the population density on the Tibetan Plateau is high in the east and low in the west, suggesting that an increase in human activity is likely to promote the occurrence of fire. The BRT modeling reveals that NPP, elevation, and mean temperature of the coldest month are important factors for total charcoal concentration on the Tibetan Plateau, and the frequency and intensity of fires further increase with increasing vegetation biomass, decreasing elevation, and decreasing mean temperature of the coldest month. The spatial variation characteristics of charcoal from topsoil on the Tibetan Plateau not only reflect well the spatial fire situation in the region, but also have a good indicative significance for vegetation, climate, and human activities.</p>","PeriodicalId":48927,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Earth Science","volume":"522 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers of Earth Science","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-023-1095-5","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As an important proxy for investigating past fire activities, charcoal is often used to explore the characteristics of fire distribution and its relationships with vegetation, climate, and human activities. Research into the spatial distribution and environmental determinants for charcoal, however, is still limited. In this study, we identified and counted charcoal from topsoil samples covering the Tibetan Plateau using the pollen methodology, and investigated its relationships with vegetation net primary production (NPP), elevation, climate (precipitation, mean temperature of the coldest month and warmest month) and human population by boosted regression trees (BRT). Results reveal that the concentration of microscopic charcoal, macroscopic charcoal, and total charcoal all increase from south-west to north-east, which is consistent with the trend that the population density on the Tibetan Plateau is high in the east and low in the west, suggesting that an increase in human activity is likely to promote the occurrence of fire. The BRT modeling reveals that NPP, elevation, and mean temperature of the coldest month are important factors for total charcoal concentration on the Tibetan Plateau, and the frequency and intensity of fires further increase with increasing vegetation biomass, decreasing elevation, and decreasing mean temperature of the coldest month. The spatial variation characteristics of charcoal from topsoil on the Tibetan Plateau not only reflect well the spatial fire situation in the region, but also have a good indicative significance for vegetation, climate, and human activities.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers of Earth Science publishes original, peer-reviewed, theoretical and experimental frontier research papers as well as significant review articles of more general interest to earth scientists. The journal features articles dealing with observations, patterns, processes, and modeling of both innerspheres (including deep crust, mantle, and core) and outerspheres (including atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere) of the earth. Its aim is to promote communication and share knowledge among the international earth science communities