Pyrogenic Factor in the Late Pleistocene Ecosystems of Yakutia

Abstract

The article considers the pyrogenic factor as one of the key environmental factors that formed the late Pleistocene ecosystems of the Northern Hemisphere that served as the fodder base for the mammoth megafauna. The lack of direct evidence of the spread of fires in the Late Pleistocene, as well as the difficulty in determining their influence on the formation of ecosystems, was compensated by modeling on the actualis- tic principles of the current spread of fires in the territory of Russia, depending on macro-climatic indices. The disintegration (disappearance) of the mammoth faunal complex could be associated with strong bioceno- ses changes in the early Holocene, when due to climate change in the direction of increasing precipitation and lowering the average annual temperatures, the effect of the pyrogenic factor was minimized. This led to the fact that meadow communities stabilized in the grassy stage of the post-pyrogenic succession process, in the late Pleistocene, were actually a zonal type of vegetation, greatly reduced their areas, giving way to for- est formations. Subsequently, in the Atlantic time of the Holocene and later, the number of wildfires in the territory of Yakutia increased, but due to the absence of large and giant herbivores, the stabilization of suc- cessions in grassy stages ceased and the onset of forest formations began.