研究人员利用第四纪晚期大型食草动物灭绝作为全球排除实验，来研究草地生态系统古火活动（通过木炭指标）对灭绝严重程度大陆差异的反应。草地生态系统的火灾活动随着食草动物的灭绝而增加，在遭受最大的食草动物损失的大陆上有较大的增加；食草动物的减少没有这种影响。这些变化表明，食草动物可以对火灾产生地球系统规模的影响，在预测过去和未来全球火灾活动的变化时，应明确考虑食草动物的影响。
据悉，由于气候的影响，火灾活动在全球范围内变化很大，但在广泛的时空尺度上，食草动物对火灾活动的可能影响是未知的。
附：英文原文
Title: Global response of fire activity to late Quaternary grazer extinctions
Author: Allison T. Karp, J. Tyler Faith, Jennifer R. Marlon, A. Carla Staver
Issue&Volume: 2021-11-26
Abstract: Fire activity varies substantially at global scales because of the influence of climate, but at broad spatiotemporal scales, the possible effects of herbivory on fire activity are unknown. Here, we used late Quaternary large-bodied herbivore extinctions as a global exclusion experiment to examine the responses of grassy ecosystem paleofire activity (through charcoal proxies) to continental differences in extinction severity. Grassy ecosystem fire activity increased in response to herbivore extinction, with larger increases on continents that suffered the largest losses of grazers; browser declines had no such effect. These shifts suggest that herbivory can have Earth system–scale effects on fire and that herbivore impacts should be explicitly considered when predicting changes in past and future global fire activity.
DOI: abj1580
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj1580