Palaeoenvironmental evaluation of the importance of fire as a cause for Calluna loss in the British Isles

Pollen and microscopic charcoal analyses of sediment cores were used to reconstruct long-term vegetation and fire histories for seven moorland lake catchments in the UK and Ireland. In each of the seven catchments Calluna vulgaris cover has declined considerably over the last 100–150 years. Redundancy analysis was used to examine the relationship between declining Calluna cover and catchment fire histories to determine whether burning of catchment vegetation was associated with the onset of Calluna loss. The results suggest that burning may have been a significant factor contributing toward the decline in Calluna cover at two of the seven study sites, but no single causative factor could be shown to be responsible for the decline on a national scale.