Carbonate, lipids, pollen and spores, charcoal of sediment core GeoB7929-2 during the Holocene from the NE Atlantic

However, very little attention has been given to the role of fire in shaping the land cover, although in is known that fires are important in the formation and consolidation of the African savanna.

To fill this gap, we investigated the interaction between precipitation changes, vegetation shifts, and fire occurrence in West Africa by combining stable isotope measurements on plant waxes with pollen and micro-charcoal counts of marine sediments retrieved offshore of Cape Blanc. Our study focusses on the roles of fire at the dry limit of savanna during the Holocene evolution of precipitation changes indicating that the impact of fire during a relative wet climate differs from that during aridification.