The optimum fire window: applying the fire–productivity hypothesis to Jurassic climate states

Abstract

Present-day fire frequency is related to a productivity–aridity gradient on regional and global scales. Optimum fire conditions occur at times of intermediate productivity and aridity, whereas fire is limited at the high productivity (moisture) and aridity (no fuel) endmembers. However, the current global fire activity pattern is reinforced by the predominant burning of grasslands. Here we test the intermediate fire–productivity hypothesis for a period on Earth before the evolution of grasses, the Early Jurassic, and explore the fire regime of two contrasting climatic states: the cooling of the Late Pliensbachian Event (LPE) and the warming of the Sinemurian–Pliensbachian Boundary (SPB). Palaeo-fire records are reconstructed from fossil charcoal abundance, and changes in the hydrological cycle are tracked via clay mineralogy, which allows inference of changes in fuel moisture status. Large fluctuations in the fossil charcoal on an eccentricity timescale indicate two modes of fire regime at the time. Wildfires were moisture-limited in a high-productivity ecosystem during eccentricity minima for both the SPB and the LPE. During eccentricity maxima fires increased, and an optimum fire window was reached, in which periodically greater seasonality in rainfall and temperatures led to intermediate states of productivity and aridity. The LPE experienced more extreme climatic endmembers compared to the SPB, with the fire regime edging closer to “moisture limitation” during eccentricity minima, and experienced more pronounced seasonality during eccentricity maxima, explained by the overall cooler climate at the time. This study illustrates that the intermediate-productivity gradient holds up during two contrasting climatic states in the Jurassic.