Modeling vegetation and ecosystem responses to climate change and fire regime

Climatic fire danger will likely increase because more droughts and heat-waves are caused by climate change. Climate change can shift fires from occurring only rarely to regularly in ecosystems not until now adapted to fire. We applied dynamic vegetation-fire models to investigate these future responses. The future of fire in Mediterranean-type ecosystems depends strongly on changes in vegetation productivity, thus fuel availability, if burned area increases as much as fire danger. Temperate ecosystems might be exposed to Mediterranean-like fire regimes. In high altitudes, Mediterranean trees might migrate up-hill and cause feedbacks between diversity and fire under climate change