Results from macroscopic and microscopic charcoal analyses indicate high amounts of burnt biomass during the Early Holocene, and that the present-day, low-severity surface fire regime has been in place since c. We assess past fire-vegetation feedbacks using sedimentary proxy records from Lake Satagay, Central Yakutia, Siberia, covering the past c. However, long-term relationships between changes in fire regime and forest structure remain largely unknown. Intensifying fire regimes also increase disturbance pressure on the boreal forests, which currently protect the permafrost beneath from accelerated degradation. In eastern Siberia, fire activity has been increasing in recent years, challenging the livelihoods of local communities. Wildfires play an essential role in the ecology of boreal forests.

Birch is an important component of larch forests near the southern boundary of the permafrost, which may contribute to larch forests in the southern part of the study transect being less vulnerable to wildfires compared to northern larch forests. The impact of severe fires on stand volume was negligible at the southern sites, potentially associated with rapid regeneration of birch. The distribution of trees by diameter class in some areas showed clear evidence of fires, with small trees being absent to rare in forests burnt at high severity. The volume of dead standing trees, on the other hand, increased from south to north. Similarly, volume of coarse woody debris decreased from south to north. ha ⁻¹ ), with higher values in forests burnt with low severity.Live tree volume differed significantly across geographical regions ( p < 0.05), decreasing from south to north (76–250 m ³ We measured 23 sites in the southern part of eastern Siberia along a latitudinal transect with a length of more than 1500 km. Here we analyzed the stand structure and growth of East Siberian larch forests in response to fire severity.

The predicted increase in frequency and intensity of boreal forest fires is considered a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions and linked with the degradation of permafrost covering more than half of Russia. Doing so will optimize long-term carbon storage and the provision of other ecosystem services, and can help guide evolving forest policy at the nexus of the biodiversity and climate crises. This underscores the need to protect primary forests, develop consistent large-scale data products to identify high-integrity forests, and operationalize a framework of ecosystem integrity. We find that primary forests consistently have higher levels of ecosystem integrity and lower risk profiles than human-modified forests.

We review the theory and present a conceptual framework, compare elements of integrity between primary and human-modified forests, and discuss the policy and management implications. Here we assess the potential for using a framework of ecosystem integrity to guide policy goals. However, rules and guidelines that treat forest types equally regardless of their ecosystem integrity and risk profiles in terms of forest and carbon loss limit policy effectiveness and can facilitate forest degradation. Several key international policy frameworks involve forests, including the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Undisturbed forest