Fire forbids fifty-fifty forest

Recent studies have interpreted patterns of remotely sensed tree cover as evidence that forest with intermediate tree cover might be unstable in the tropics, as it will tip into either a closed forest or a more open savanna state. Here we show that across all continents the frequency of wildfires ri...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2018-01, Vol.13 (1), p.e0191027-e0191027
Main Authors: van Nes, Egbert H, Staal, Arie, Hantson, Stijn, Holmgren, Milena, Pueyo, Salvador, Bernardi, Rafael E, Flores, Bernardo M, Xu, Chi, Scheffer, Marten
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Aquatic ecology
Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management
Aquatische Ecologie en Waterkwaliteitsbeheer
Biology and Life Sciences
Climate change
Continents
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Empirical models
Environmental aspects
Environmental science
Feedback
Forest fires
Forests
Grasses
Health aspects
Hypotheses
Leerstoelgroep Aquatische ecologie en waterkwaliteitsbeheer
Leerstoelgroep Resource Ecology
PE&RC
Percolation
Physical Sciences
Precipitation
Remote sensing
Resource Ecology
Savannahs
Slopes
Tree growth
Trees
Tropical environments
Water quality
Wildfires
WIMEK
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Summary:Recent studies have interpreted patterns of remotely sensed tree cover as evidence that forest with intermediate tree cover might be unstable in the tropics, as it will tip into either a closed forest or a more open savanna state. Here we show that across all continents the frequency of wildfires rises sharply as tree cover falls below ~40%. Using a simple empirical model, we hypothesize that the steepness of this pattern causes intermediate tree cover (30‒60%) to be unstable for a broad range of assumptions on tree growth and fire-driven mortality. We show that across all continents, observed frequency distributions of tropical tree cover are consistent with this hypothesis. We argue that percolation of fire through an open landscape may explain the remarkably universal rise of fire frequency around a critical tree cover, but we show that simple percolation models cannot predict the actual threshold quantitatively. The fire-driven instability of intermediate states implies that tree cover will not change smoothly with climate or other stressors and shifts between closed forest and a state of low tree cover will likely tend to be relatively sharp and difficult to reverse.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0191027