Multi-century reconstruction suggests complex interactions of climate and human controls of forest fire activity in a Karelian boreal landscape, North-West Russia

摘要

Spatially explicit reconstructions of fire activity in European boreal forest are rare, which limits our understanding of factors driving vegetation dynamics in this part of the boreal domain. We have developed a spatially explicit dendrochronological reconstruction of a fire regime in a 25 x 50 km(2) area within boreal biome located within the Kalevalsky National Park (Kalevalsky NP), over the 1400-2010 CE period. We dated 184 fire years using 212 fire-scarred living and dead Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees collected on 38 sites.