Through a new project FONDECYT will study the influences of extreme weather on araucaria fires

This is the third Regular FONDECYT project in which they have studied the occurrence of fires in araucaria forests using dendrochronology techniques. With these investigations, Dr. Mauro González, academic at the Universidad Austral de Chile, Director of the FireSES Nucleus of the house of studies and researcher at (CR)2, has advanced knowledge about the history of fires and resilience capacity of the forests of this thousand-year-old species, an icon of our country.

The recently awarded project is the Regular FONDECYT “Disentangling the influence of climate extremes and human activity on fire regimes of coastal and Andean Araucaria forests during the last millennium”whose development is based on these experiences and previous studies, but in this case focused on understanding the factors associated with the increase in the occurrence of fires that have been observed in the Araucanía Region in recent decades and which seem to be closely linked to climatic events. extremes: heat waves, drought and hot winds from the east, called “puelche”.

“These extreme events are generating a greater frequency and synchrony of fires at the regional level, both natural and anthropic, strongly affecting the araucaria forests, therefore, it is an aspect that we want to evaluate based on the fire regime of the past,” stated Dr. González.

fire history

This initiative has a context of years of studies in which the academic, together with an interdisciplinary research team, have advanced in the understanding of the role of fire in these mountain ecosystems and the human and climatic influence. In the development of the history of fires it has been necessary to use different evidence or records.

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One of them is fire scars, which are based on the mark on the growth rings of trees as evidence of fires in recent centuries and to which a new technique that identifies the pulses of certain chemical elements has also been incorporated. in rings after fires that allow fire chronologies to be extended into the past. “To this is added the coal sediment cores that allow us to compare and extend the history of fires for the last millennia and also reconstruct the climate and vegetation of the past,” he added.

“Integrating these different tools and records (multiproxies) allows us a better understanding of the role of fire in these ecosystems and how this ecological process has been controlled by climate variability and human activity during the last millennia,” he said.

For Dr. González, the results they have obtained “show that fire is a key factor in the dynamics of these forests and, although this project does not specifically aim at studying the ecology and dynamics of araucaria forests, it Through these studies we can propose strategies that allow us to conserve and restore forests that have been burned during the last decades”.

It is worth mentioning that the FONDECYT project, which will last four years, will also have the participation of the Faculties of Sciences (Dr. Ana Abarzúa) and of Philosophy and Humanities (Dr. María Eugenia Solar) from the UACh, in addition to the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, through Dr. Ariel Muñoz.