Northward expansion of fire-adaptative vegetation in future warming

Abstract

Fire frequency and intensity are increasing due to higher temperatures and more droughts. The distributions of fuels (vegetation in natural conditions) are also changing in response to climate change. The vegetation in cold environments such as high latitudes and high altitudes is found to move upward or northward due to global warming. However, few studies have investigated the distribution changes of fire adaptive species in warm environments. This study estimated and compared the distributions of a typical fuelwood, the Eucalyptus globulus , under different climate scenarios. The species distribution modeling techniques were adopted to estimate the current distributions of the Eucalyptus globulus and the future distributions under scenarios of both SSP245 and SSP585 in 2060. Results show that the probability of the existence of the Eucalyptus globulus in the Northern Hemisphere increases significantly ( p < 0.001) under both SSP245 and SSP585, especially in North America and Europe. However, the probability in the Southern Hemisphere decreases. The distribution of the Eucalyptus globulus expands in the mid-latitude (40 N–60 N) of the Northern Hemisphere. High carbon emissions contribute to the boost of the establishment of the Eucalyptus globulus in the Northern Hemisphere. These findings demonstrate that the fire adaptive species shows the tendency of shifting northward in response to climate change, highlighting the challenge of northward expansion of fires in future warming.

Keywords

• fire
• fuels
• species distribution modeling
• distribution shift
• warm environments