Figure 4.

Modern examples of striped and plaid landscapes. (A) Striped: Altitudinal distribution of plant communities on San Francisco Peaks, Arizona (after Merriam, 1890). These communities have equilibrated with the Holocene's prolonged equable climate. (B) Plaid: Perimeters of wildland fires since AD 1940 in the boreal forest of Interior Alaska. Different colours depict fires occurring in different decades (https://afsmaps.blm.gov/imf/imf.jsp?site=firehistory). In this region, fire‐return intervals are 40–150 years (Gaglioti et al., 2016). Today, megafaunal herbivores (moose, Alces alces, and caribou, Rangifer tarandus) exploit vegetation growing during particular successional stages within these old burns (MacCracken & Viereck, 1990; Rupp et al., 2006).