13,000 years of fire activity in a temperate rainforest on the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada

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dc.contributor.authorHoffman, Kira M.
dc.contributor.supervisorStarzomsk, Brian M.
dc.date.accessioned2018-04-10T14:49:29Z
dc.date.available2018-04-10T14:49:29Z
dc.date.copyright2018en_US
dc.date.issued2018-04-10
dc.degree.departmentSchool of Environmental Studiesen_US
dc.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy Ph.D.en_US
dc.description.abstractWhile wildfire is globally most common in the savanna-grassland ecotone, the flammability of coastal temperate rainforests is considered low and little is known regarding historic fire activity. Reconstructing historical fire activity typically requires dendrochronological records from fire-scarred trees and post-fire cohorts, but this type of information is rare in perhumid temperate rainforests, which are dominated by dense fuels with high year-round moisture content. I reconstructed historic fire activity using fire scars, tree rings, soil charcoal, and remote sensing techniques in a 2000 km2 island group located within the Hakai Lúxvbálís Conservancy on the coastal margin of central British Columbia. I broadly assessed 13,000 years of fire activity with charcoal deposited in soils, and reconstructed late Holocene fire events with a 700-year chronology built from living fire-scarred trees and stand establishment data. I used a weight of evidence approach to hypothesize the origins of fires and whether First Nations intentionally utilized fire for resource management. Low-severity fires occurred most frequently in forests surrounding former First Nations habitation sites, and lightning strikes do not occur often enough to explain the observed temporal or spatial patterns of fire activity in the study area. Low-severity fires occurred approximately every 39 years, and were 25 times more likely to occur than previously estimated. Fires influenced the composition and structure of vegetation by creating a mosaic of vegetation types in different stages of succession, and thus increased the abundance of culturally important food plants. Fire events have not occurred in the study area since 1893, which also coincides with the reduction of First Nations activities in their traditional territories. My data are consistent with the hypothesis that humans intentionally used fire to manage resources, though further research and ethnographic data collected elsewhere in the region is required to corroborate these findings. Ecological legacies of historic fires remain visible on the present day landscape, and by reconstructing the historic range of fire cycle variability we gain a better understanding of human-driven fire activity and the abrupt changes that occurred in the 20th century.en_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitationHoffman KM, Gavin DG, Starzomski BM. 2016b. 700 years of human driven and climate influenced fire activity in a coastal temperate rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. Royal Society Open Science 3:160608.en_US
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitationHoffman KM, Gavin DG, Lertzman KP, Smith DJ, Starzomski BM. 2016a. 13,000 years of fire history derived from soil charcoal in a British Columbia coastal temperate rainforest. Ecosphere 7:e01415.en_US
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitationHoffman KM, Lertzman KP, Starzomski BM. 2017. Ecological legacies of historic fire activity in a British Columbia coastal temperate rainforest. Journal of Biogeography 44(12):2903–2915.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/9210
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectFire ecologyen_US
dc.subjectTraditional fire managementen_US
dc.subjectBritish Columbiaen_US
dc.subjectPerhumid rainforestsen_US
dc.subjectCoastal Temperate Rainforesten_US
dc.subjectCanadaen_US
dc.subjectCultural burningen_US
dc.subjectDendroecologyen_US
dc.subjectHoloceneen_US
dc.subjectSoil charcoalen_US
dc.subjectEcological legaciesen_US
dc.subjectRemote sensingen_US
dc.subjectEthnoecologyen_US
dc.subjectWestern redcedaren_US
dc.title13,000 years of fire activity in a temperate rainforest on the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canadaen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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