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Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Vegetation burning is a common land management practice in Africa, where fire is used for hunting, livestock husbandry, pest control, food gathering, cropland fertilization, and wildfire prevention. Given such strong anthropogenic control of fire, we tested the hypotheses that fire activity displays...

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Autores principales: Pereira, José M. C., Oom, Duarte, Pereira, Paula, Turkman, Antónia A., Turkman, K. Feridun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4587943/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26418002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139189
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author Pereira, José M. C.
Oom, Duarte
Pereira, Paula
Turkman, Antónia A.
Turkman, K. Feridun
author_facet Pereira, José M. C.
Oom, Duarte
Pereira, Paula
Turkman, Antónia A.
Turkman, K. Feridun
author_sort Pereira, José M. C.
collection PubMed
description Vegetation burning is a common land management practice in Africa, where fire is used for hunting, livestock husbandry, pest control, food gathering, cropland fertilization, and wildfire prevention. Given such strong anthropogenic control of fire, we tested the hypotheses that fire activity displays weekly cycles, and that the week day with the fewest fires depends on regionally predominant religious affiliation. We also analyzed the effect of land use (anthrome) on weekly fire cycle significance. Fire density (fire counts.km(-2)) observed per week day in each region was modeled using a negative binomial regression model, with fire counts as response variable, region area as offset and a structured random effect to account for spatial dependence. Anthrome (settled, cropland, natural, rangeland), religion (Christian, Muslim, mixed) week day, and their 2-way and 3-way interactions were used as independent variables. Models were also built separately for each anthrome, relating regional fire density with week day and religious affiliation. Analysis revealed a significant interaction between religion and week day, i.e. regions with different religious affiliation (Christian, Muslim) display distinct weekly cycles of burning. However, the religion vs. week day interaction only is significant for croplands, i.e. fire activity in African croplands is significantly lower on Sunday in Christian regions and on Friday in Muslim regions. Magnitude of fire activity does not differ significantly among week days in rangelands and in natural areas, where fire use is under less strict control than in croplands. These findings can contribute towards improved specification of ignition patterns in regional/global vegetation fire models, and may lead to more accurate meteorological and chemical weather forecasting.
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spelling pubmed-45879432015-10-02 Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa Pereira, José M. C. Oom, Duarte Pereira, Paula Turkman, Antónia A. Turkman, K. Feridun PLoS One Research Article Vegetation burning is a common land management practice in Africa, where fire is used for hunting, livestock husbandry, pest control, food gathering, cropland fertilization, and wildfire prevention. Given such strong anthropogenic control of fire, we tested the hypotheses that fire activity displays weekly cycles, and that the week day with the fewest fires depends on regionally predominant religious affiliation. We also analyzed the effect of land use (anthrome) on weekly fire cycle significance. Fire density (fire counts.km(-2)) observed per week day in each region was modeled using a negative binomial regression model, with fire counts as response variable, region area as offset and a structured random effect to account for spatial dependence. Anthrome (settled, cropland, natural, rangeland), religion (Christian, Muslim, mixed) week day, and their 2-way and 3-way interactions were used as independent variables. Models were also built separately for each anthrome, relating regional fire density with week day and religious affiliation. Analysis revealed a significant interaction between religion and week day, i.e. regions with different religious affiliation (Christian, Muslim) display distinct weekly cycles of burning. However, the religion vs. week day interaction only is significant for croplands, i.e. fire activity in African croplands is significantly lower on Sunday in Christian regions and on Friday in Muslim regions. Magnitude of fire activity does not differ significantly among week days in rangelands and in natural areas, where fire use is under less strict control than in croplands. These findings can contribute towards improved specification of ignition patterns in regional/global vegetation fire models, and may lead to more accurate meteorological and chemical weather forecasting. Public Library of Science 2015-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4587943/ /pubmed/26418002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139189 Text en © 2015 Pereira et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pereira, José M. C.
Oom, Duarte
Pereira, Paula
Turkman, Antónia A.
Turkman, K. Feridun
Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa
title Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_full Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_fullStr Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_full_unstemmed Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_short Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_sort religious affiliation modulates weekly cycles of cropland burning in sub-saharan africa
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4587943/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26418002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139189
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