Advancing the understanding of long-term wildfire dynamics in the world’s boreal forests

• Applicant: Ramesh Glückler
• Subject Area: Physical Geography ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 562983797

Intense wildfire seasons across the circumpolar boreal forests highlight the need for understanding past wildfire dynamics, its drivers, and impacts. Sedimentary charcoal is commonly used in paleofire studies to reconstruct past wildfire activity on decadal to millennial scales, but some regions of the boreal zone remained poorly studied. However, data availability rapidly increased within the past few years. Building on that progress, this project aims at advancing the understanding of wildfire dynamics across the world’s boreal forest by reviewing and compiling existing paleofire data, uncovering long-term trends of biomass burning, clarifying different fire dynamics between regions, and identifying priorities for further research efforts. The project will furthermore improve the understanding of past fire-fuel relationships by providing the first regional calibration experiment for linking charcoal particle morphologies to fuel types in eastern Siberia. Research will be conducted within an experienced researching group at Auburn University, USA, with existing and readily available data and vegetation samples, using established methods, while facilitating cooperation and networking among paleofire working groups. The project furthermore serves to diversify my research expertise and network, currently focused on Siberia, to facilitate future research cooperation in North America.

• DFG Programme: WBP Fellowship
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. Richard Vachula