Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene

Thomas G.  Sim; Graeme T. Swindles; Paul J Morris; Andy J.  Baird; Angela V. Gallego-Sala; Yuwan  Wang; Maarten Blaauw; Philip Camill; Michelle Garneau; Mark  Hardiman; Julie Loisel; Minna  Vӓliranta; Lysanna  Anderson; Karina  Apolinarska; Femke  Augustijns; Liene  Aurnina; Joannie  Beaulne; Přemysl  Bobek; Werner  Borken; Nils  Broothaerts; Qiao-Yu  Cui; Marissa A.  Davies; Ana Ejarque; Michelle Farrell; Ingo  Feeser; Angelica Feurdean; Richard E.  Fewster; Sarah A Finkelstein; Marie José Gaillard; Mariusz Galka; Liam  Heffernan; Renske  Hoevers; Miriam C Jones; Teemu  Juselius; Edgar Karofeld; Klaus-Holger  Knorr; Atte Korhola; Dmitri  Kupriyanov; Malin E. Kylander; Terri Lacourse; Mariusz Lamentowicz; Mariusz Lamentowicz; Geoffrey  Lemdahl; Dominika  Łuców; Gabriel Magnan; Alekss  Maksims; Claudia A.  Mansilla; Katarzyna Marcisz; Elena  Marinova; Paul J.H.  Mathijssen; Dimitri Mauquoy; Yuri A. Mazei; Natalia G  Mazei; Julia McCarroll; Robert D.  McCulloch; Alice M. Milner; Yannick Miras; Fraser J.G.  Mitchell; Elena Novenko; Nicolas  Pelletier; Matthew  Peros; Sanna R.  Piilo; Louis-Martin  Pilote; Guillaume  Primeau; Damien  Rius; Vincent  Robin; Mylène  Robitaille; Thomas P. Roland; Eleonor  Ryberg; A Britta K Sannel; Karsten  Schittek; Gabriel  Servera-Vives; William Shotyk; Michał  Słowiński; Normunds  Stivrins; Ward  Swinnen; Gareth  Thompson; Alexei  Tiunov; Andrey N. Tsyganov; Eeva-Stiina Tuittila; Gert  Verstraeten; Tuomo  Wallenius; Julia  Webb; Debra  Willard; Zicheng Yu; Claudio Zaccone; Hui  Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020

Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene

Thomas G. Sim^* (Corresponding Author), Graeme T. Swindles, Paul J Morris, Andy J. Baird, Angela V. Gallego-Sala, Yuwan Wang, Maarten Blaauw, Philip Camill, Michelle Garneau, Mark Hardiman, Julie Loisel, Minna Vӓliranta, Lysanna Anderson, Karina Apolinarska, Femke Augustijns, Liene Aurnina, Joannie Beaulne, Přemysl Bobek, Werner Borken, Nils BroothaertsQiao-Yu Cui, Marissa A. Davies, Ana Ejarque, Michelle Farrell, Ingo Feeser, Angelica Feurdean, Richard E. Fewster, Sarah A Finkelstein, Marie José Gaillard, Mariusz Galka, Liam Heffernan, Renske Hoevers, Miriam C Jones, Teemu Juselius, Edgar Karofeld, Klaus-Holger Knorr, Atte Korhola, Dmitri Kupriyanov, Malin E. Kylander, Terri Lacourse, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Geoffrey Lemdahl, Dominika Łuców, Gabriel Magnan, Alekss Maksims, Claudia A. Mansilla, Katarzyna Marcisz, Elena Marinova, Paul J.H. Mathijssen, Dimitri Mauquoy, Yuri A. Mazei, Natalia G Mazei, Julia McCarroll, Robert D. McCulloch, Alice M. Milner, Yannick Miras, Fraser J.G. Mitchell, Elena Novenko, Nicolas Pelletier, Matthew Peros, Sanna R. Piilo, Louis-Martin Pilote, Guillaume Primeau, Damien Rius, Vincent Robin, Mylène Robitaille, Thomas P. Roland, Eleonor Ryberg, A Britta K Sannel, Karsten Schittek, Gabriel Servera-Vives, William Shotyk, Michał Słowiński, Normunds Stivrins, Ward Swinnen, Gareth Thompson, Alexei Tiunov, Andrey N. Tsyganov, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Gert Verstraeten, Tuomo Wallenius, Julia Webb, Debra Willard, Zicheng Yu, Claudio Zaccone, Hui Zhang

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennial
timescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal records from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region.
Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9 to 6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America’s Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lower
susceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires.

Original language	English
Article number	108020
Number of pages	17
Journal	Quaternary Science Reviews
Volume	305
Early online date	11 Mar 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2023

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
This work developed from the PAGES (Past Global Changes) C-PEAT (Carbon in Peat on EArth through Time) working group. PAGES has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. We acknowledge the following financial support: UK Natural Environment Research Council Training
Grants NE/L002574/1 (T.G.S.) and NE/S007458/1 (R.E.F.); Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Bogs, Quaternary Research Association and Leverhulme Trust RPG-2021-354 (G.T.S); the Academy of Finland (M.V); PAI/SIA 80002 and FONDECYT Iniciación 11220705 - ANID, Chile (C.A.M.); R20F0002 (PATSER) ANID Chile (R.D.M.); Swedish Strategic Research Area (SRA) MERGE (ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system) (M.J.G.); Polish National Science Centre Grant
number NCN 2018/29/B/ST10/00120 (K.A.); Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 19-14-00102 (Y.A.M.); University of Latvia Grant No. AAp2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03 and the Estonian Science Council grant PRG323 (TrackLag) (N.S. and A.M.); U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science/Climate Research & Development Program (M.J., L.A., and D.W.); German Research Foundation (DFG), grant MA 8083/2-1 (P.M.) and grant BL 563/19-1 (K.H.K.); German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), grant no. 57044554, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Münster, and Bavarian University Centre for Latin
America (BAYLAT) (K.H.K). Records from the Global Charcoal Database supplemented this work and therefore we would like to thank the contributors and managers of this open-source resource. We also thank Annica Greisman, Jennifer Shiller, Fredrik Olsson and Simon van Bellen for contributing charcoal data to our analyses. Any use of trade, firm, or product name is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Data Availability Statement

The data used for this research are available in the supplementary materials.

Keywords

Fire
Charcoal
Palaeofire
palaeoenvironments
Data analysis
North American
Europe
Patagonia
Carbon Balance
Drought

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

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Sim_etal_QSR_Regional_Variability_In_VOR
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Sim, T. G., Swindles, G. T., Morris, P. J., Baird, A. J., Gallego-Sala, A. V., Wang, Y., Blaauw, M., Camill, P., Garneau, M., Hardiman, M., Loisel, J., Vӓliranta, M., Anderson, L., Apolinarska, K., Augustijns, F., Aurnina, L., Beaulne, J., Bobek, P., Borken, W., ... Zhang, H. (2023). Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews, 305, Article 108020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020

Sim, TG, Swindles, GT, Morris, PJ, Baird, AJ, Gallego-Sala, AV, Wang, Y, Blaauw, M, Camill, P, Garneau, M, Hardiman, M, Loisel, J, Vӓliranta, M, Anderson, L, Apolinarska, K, Augustijns, F, Aurnina, L, Beaulne, J, Bobek, P, Borken, W, Broothaerts, N, Cui, Q-Y, Davies, MA, Ejarque, A, Farrell, M, Feeser, I, Feurdean, A, Fewster, RE, Finkelstein, SA, Gaillard, MJ, Galka, M, Heffernan, L, Hoevers, R, Jones, MC, Juselius, T, Karofeld, E, Knorr, K-H, Korhola, A, Kupriyanov, D, Kylander, ME, Lacourse, T, Lamentowicz, M, Lamentowicz, M, Lemdahl, G, Łuców, D, Magnan, G, Maksims, A, Mansilla, CA, Marcisz, K, Marinova, E, Mathijssen, PJH, Mauquoy, D, Mazei, YA, Mazei, NG, McCarroll, J, McCulloch, RD, Milner, AM, Miras, Y, Mitchell, FJG, Novenko, E, Pelletier, N, Peros, M, Piilo, SR, Pilote, L-M, Primeau, G, Rius, D, Robin, V, Robitaille, M, Roland, TP, Ryberg, E, Sannel, ABK, Schittek, K, Servera-Vives, G, Shotyk, W, Słowiński, M, Stivrins, N, Swinnen, W, Thompson, G, Tiunov, A, Tsyganov, AN, Tuittila, E-S, Verstraeten, G, Wallenius, T, Webb, J, Willard, D, Yu, Z, Zaccone, C & Zhang, H 2023, 'Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene', Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 305, 108020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020

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title = "Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene",

abstract = "Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennialtimescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal records from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region.Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9 to 6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America{\textquoteright}s Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lowersusceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires.",

keywords = "Fire, Charcoal, Palaeofire, palaeoenvironments, Data analysis, North American, Europe, Patagonia, Carbon Balance, Drought",

author = "Sim, {Thomas G.} and Swindles, {Graeme T.} and Morris, {Paul J} and Baird, {Andy J.} and Gallego-Sala, {Angela V.} and Yuwan Wang and Maarten Blaauw and Philip Camill and Michelle Garneau and Mark Hardiman and Julie Loisel and Minna Vӓliranta and Lysanna Anderson and Karina Apolinarska and Femke Augustijns and Liene Aurnina and Joannie Beaulne and P{\v r}emysl Bobek and Werner Borken and Nils Broothaerts and Qiao-Yu Cui and Davies, {Marissa A.} and Ana Ejarque and Michelle Farrell and Ingo Feeser and Angelica Feurdean and Fewster, {Richard E.} and Finkelstein, {Sarah A} and Gaillard, {Marie Jos{\'e}} and Mariusz Galka and Liam Heffernan and Renske Hoevers and Jones, {Miriam C} and Teemu Juselius and Edgar Karofeld and Klaus-Holger Knorr and Atte Korhola and Dmitri Kupriyanov and Kylander, {Malin E.} and Terri Lacourse and Mariusz Lamentowicz and Mariusz Lamentowicz and Geoffrey Lemdahl and Dominika {\L}uc{\'o}w and Gabriel Magnan and Alekss Maksims and Mansilla, {Claudia A.} and Katarzyna Marcisz and Elena Marinova and Mathijssen, {Paul J.H.} and Dimitri Mauquoy and Mazei, {Yuri A.} and Mazei, {Natalia G} and Julia McCarroll and McCulloch, {Robert D.} and Milner, {Alice M.} and Yannick Miras and Mitchell, {Fraser J.G.} and Elena Novenko and Nicolas Pelletier and Matthew Peros and Piilo, {Sanna R.} and Louis-Martin Pilote and Guillaume Primeau and Damien Rius and Vincent Robin and Myl{\`e}ne Robitaille and Roland, {Thomas P.} and Eleonor Ryberg and Sannel, {A Britta K} and Karsten Schittek and Gabriel Servera-Vives and William Shotyk and Micha{\l} S{\l}owi{\'n}ski and Normunds Stivrins and Ward Swinnen and Gareth Thompson and Alexei Tiunov and Tsyganov, {Andrey N.} and Eeva-Stiina Tuittila and Gert Verstraeten and Tuomo Wallenius and Julia Webb and Debra Willard and Zicheng Yu and Claudio Zaccone and Hui Zhang",

note = "Acknowledgements This work developed from the PAGES (Past Global Changes) C-PEAT (Carbon in Peat on EArth through Time) working group. PAGES has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. We acknowledge the following financial support: UK Natural Environment Research Council Training Grants NE/L002574/1 (T.G.S.) and NE/S007458/1 (R.E.F.); Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Bogs, Quaternary Research Association and Leverhulme Trust RPG-2021-354 (G.T.S); the Academy of Finland (M.V); PAI/SIA 80002 and FONDECYT Iniciaci{\'o}n 11220705 - ANID, Chile (C.A.M.); R20F0002 (PATSER) ANID Chile (R.D.M.); Swedish Strategic Research Area (SRA) MERGE (ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system) (M.J.G.); Polish National Science Centre Grant number NCN 2018/29/B/ST10/00120 (K.A.); Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 19-14-00102 (Y.A.M.); University of Latvia Grant No. AAp2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03 and the Estonian Science Council grant PRG323 (TrackLag) (N.S. and A.M.); U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science/Climate Research & Development Program (M.J., L.A., and D.W.); German Research Foundation (DFG), grant MA 8083/2-1 (P.M.) and grant BL 563/19-1 (K.H.K.); German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), grant no. 57044554, Faculty of Geosciences, University of M{\"u}nster, and Bavarian University Centre for Latin America (BAYLAT) (K.H.K). Records from the Global Charcoal Database supplemented this work and therefore we would like to thank the contributors and managers of this open-source resource. We also thank Annica Greisman, Jennifer Shiller, Fredrik Olsson and Simon van Bellen for contributing charcoal data to our analyses. Any use of trade, firm, or product name is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.",

year = "2023",

month = apr,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020",

language = "English",

volume = "305",

journal = "Quaternary Science Reviews",

issn = "0277-3791",

publisher = "Elsevier",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene

AU - Sim, Thomas G.

AU - Swindles, Graeme T.

AU - Morris, Paul J

AU - Baird, Andy J.

AU - Gallego-Sala, Angela V.

AU - Wang, Yuwan

AU - Blaauw, Maarten

AU - Camill, Philip

AU - Garneau, Michelle

AU - Hardiman, Mark

AU - Loisel, Julie

AU - Vӓliranta, Minna

AU - Anderson, Lysanna

AU - Apolinarska, Karina

AU - Augustijns, Femke

AU - Aurnina, Liene

AU - Beaulne, Joannie

AU - Bobek, Přemysl

AU - Borken, Werner

AU - Broothaerts, Nils

AU - Cui, Qiao-Yu

AU - Davies, Marissa A.

AU - Ejarque, Ana

AU - Farrell, Michelle

AU - Feeser, Ingo

AU - Feurdean, Angelica

AU - Fewster, Richard E.

AU - Finkelstein, Sarah A

AU - Gaillard, Marie José

AU - Galka, Mariusz

AU - Heffernan, Liam

AU - Hoevers, Renske

AU - Jones, Miriam C

AU - Juselius, Teemu

AU - Karofeld, Edgar

AU - Knorr, Klaus-Holger

AU - Korhola, Atte

AU - Kupriyanov, Dmitri

AU - Kylander, Malin E.

AU - Lacourse, Terri

AU - Lamentowicz, Mariusz

AU - Lemdahl, Geoffrey

AU - Łuców, Dominika

AU - Magnan, Gabriel

AU - Maksims, Alekss

AU - Mansilla, Claudia A.

AU - Marcisz, Katarzyna

AU - Marinova, Elena

AU - Mathijssen, Paul J.H.

AU - Mauquoy, Dimitri

AU - Mazei, Yuri A.

AU - Mazei, Natalia G

AU - McCarroll, Julia

AU - McCulloch, Robert D.

AU - Milner, Alice M.

AU - Miras, Yannick

AU - Mitchell, Fraser J.G.

AU - Novenko, Elena

AU - Pelletier, Nicolas

AU - Peros, Matthew

AU - Piilo, Sanna R.

AU - Pilote, Louis-Martin

AU - Primeau, Guillaume

AU - Rius, Damien

AU - Robin, Vincent

AU - Robitaille, Mylène

AU - Roland, Thomas P.

AU - Ryberg, Eleonor

AU - Sannel, A Britta K

AU - Schittek, Karsten

AU - Servera-Vives, Gabriel

AU - Shotyk, William

AU - Słowiński, Michał

AU - Stivrins, Normunds

AU - Swinnen, Ward

AU - Thompson, Gareth

AU - Tiunov, Alexei

AU - Tsyganov, Andrey N.

AU - Tuittila, Eeva-Stiina

AU - Verstraeten, Gert

AU - Wallenius, Tuomo

AU - Webb, Julia

AU - Willard, Debra

AU - Yu, Zicheng

AU - Zaccone, Claudio

AU - Zhang, Hui

N1 - Acknowledgements This work developed from the PAGES (Past Global Changes) C-PEAT (Carbon in Peat on EArth through Time) working group. PAGES has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. We acknowledge the following financial support: UK Natural Environment Research Council Training Grants NE/L002574/1 (T.G.S.) and NE/S007458/1 (R.E.F.); Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Bogs, Quaternary Research Association and Leverhulme Trust RPG-2021-354 (G.T.S); the Academy of Finland (M.V); PAI/SIA 80002 and FONDECYT Iniciación 11220705 - ANID, Chile (C.A.M.); R20F0002 (PATSER) ANID Chile (R.D.M.); Swedish Strategic Research Area (SRA) MERGE (ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system) (M.J.G.); Polish National Science Centre Grant number NCN 2018/29/B/ST10/00120 (K.A.); Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 19-14-00102 (Y.A.M.); University of Latvia Grant No. AAp2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03 and the Estonian Science Council grant PRG323 (TrackLag) (N.S. and A.M.); U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science/Climate Research & Development Program (M.J., L.A., and D.W.); German Research Foundation (DFG), grant MA 8083/2-1 (P.M.) and grant BL 563/19-1 (K.H.K.); German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), grant no. 57044554, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Münster, and Bavarian University Centre for Latin America (BAYLAT) (K.H.K). Records from the Global Charcoal Database supplemented this work and therefore we would like to thank the contributors and managers of this open-source resource. We also thank Annica Greisman, Jennifer Shiller, Fredrik Olsson and Simon van Bellen for contributing charcoal data to our analyses. Any use of trade, firm, or product name is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

PY - 2023/4/1

Y1 - 2023/4/1

N2 - Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennialtimescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal records from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region.Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9 to 6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America’s Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lowersusceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires.

AB - Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennialtimescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal records from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region.Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9 to 6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America’s Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lowersusceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires.

KW - Fire

KW - Charcoal

KW - Palaeofire

KW - palaeoenvironments

KW - Data analysis

KW - North American

KW - Europe

KW - Patagonia

KW - Carbon Balance

KW - Drought

U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020

DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020

M3 - Article

SN - 0277-3791

VL - 305

JO - Quaternary Science Reviews

JF - Quaternary Science Reviews

M1 - 108020

ER -

Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

UN SDGs

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