Drivers of Holocene Land Cover Change in Europe

The modern vegetation of Europe is a product of its history. Climate change, plant migration, and human activity have all been important drivers of Holocene (11,500 years ago to the present) vegetation dynamics, but it is difficult to disentangle the relative importance of the three processes. This thesis uses a vegetation model and land cover reconstructions based on pollen data to explore the drivers of European vegetation change. I conclude that human activity has likely been an important driver for many millennia, both through disturbing the vegetated landscape and possibly also through causing soil erosion in drought-sensitive areas, but that post-glacial migration is likely also an important factor. In the face of future climate change and intensifying human land use, it will be necessary to incorporate these results into landscape management and conservation planning.

Geophysical Applications of Vegetation Modeling

Jed Oliver Kaplan

This thesis describes the development and selected applications of a global vegetation model, BIOME4. The model is applied to problems in high-latitude vegetation distribution and climate, trace gas production, and isotope biogeochemistry. It demonstrates how a modeling approach, based on principles of plant physiology and ecology, can be applied to interdisciplinary problems that cannot be adequately addressed by direct observations or experiments. The work is relevant to understanding the potential effects of climate change on the terrestrial biosphere and the feedbacks between the biosphere and climate. BIOME4 simulates the distribution of 15 high-latitude biomes, including five tundra vegetation types, for the present day using observed climate, and the LGM, mid-Holocene, and a “greenhouse” scenario for 2100 using the output of GCMs. In the LGM simulations, the high-latitudes show a marked increase in the area of graminoid and forb tundra, which is also the predominant feature in the paleodata. This vegetation has no widespread modern analog; it was favored by the cold, dry climate, and supported large mammoth populations. Mid-Holocene simulations indicate a modest, asymmetrical northward advance of the Arctic treeline compared to present, with greatest extension in central Siberia (up to 300 km), and little to no change in the Western Hemisphere. This result is in good agreement with pollen and megafossil data from the same period. Differential warming of the continents in response to increased high-latitude solar radiation is hypothesized to account for the asymmetry. Vegetation changes in the 2100 projection, which assumes a continued exponential increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations, are more radical than those simulated for the mid-Holocene. The year-round forcing due to GHGs increases both summertime and annual temperatures in the high latitudes by up to double the mid-Holocene anomaly. However the potential treeline advances and biome shifts in our simulation are unlikely to be realized within 100 years, because of the time required for migration and establishment of new vegetation types. Potential natural wetland area for the present day was simulated by BIOME4 as 11.0x106km2. This value is higher than other estimates but includes small (

Lund University2001

Palaeoecological evidence for anthropogenic acidification of a kettle-hole peatland in northern Poland

Mariusz Lamentowicz, Edward Mitchell

We studied the Holocene developmental history of a small kettle-hole peatland in northern Poland using radiocarbon dating and analyses of pollen, plant macrofossils, and testate amoebae with the aim to sort out the influences of climate change, autogenic succession, and human impact. The mire followed the classical succession from lake to a Sphagnum-dominated peatland, but peat accumulation only started about 3000 years before present. A rapid shift to wetter conditions, lower pH, and higher peat accumulation rate took place about 110-150 years before present, when the vegetation shifted to a Sphagnum-dominated poor fen with some bog plants. While the first shift to a peat-accumulating system was most likely driven by climate, the second one was probably caused by forest clearance around the mire. This shift towards a Sphagnum-dominated vegetation mirrors both in pattern and timing the changes observed in similar situations in North America and New-Zealand. While human activities have overall caused the loss of vast expanses of peatlands worldwide in recent centuries, locally they may have also allowed the development of communities that are now ironically considered to have a high conservation value. However, in the case of the site studied and possibly elsewhere the likely anthropogenic shift to bog vegetation was at the expense of a species-rich poor fen, which today has even higher conservation value than ombrotrophic bogs. Thus this study also illustrates the value of palaeoecology for peatland management and biodiversity conservation.

2007

Climate change and Arctic ecosystems: 1. Vegetation changes north of 55 degrees N between the last glacial maximum, mid-Holocene, and present

Jed Oliver Kaplan, Verena Wolf

A unified scheme to assign pollen samples to vegetation types was used to reconstruct vegetation patterns north of 55°N at the last glacial maximum (LGM) and mid-Holocene (6000 years B.P.). The pollen data set assembled for this purpose represents a comprehensive compilation based on the work of many projects and research groups. Five tundra types (cushion forb tundra, graminoid and forb tundra, prostrate dwarf-shrub tundra, erect dwarf-shrub tundra, and low- and high-shrub tundra) were distinguished and mapped on the basis of modern pollen surface samples. The tundra-forest boundary and the distributions of boreal and temperate forest types today were realistically reconstructed. During the mid-Holocene the tundra-forest boundary was north of its present position in some regions, but the pattern of this shift was strongly asymmetrical around the pole, with the largest northward shift in central Siberia (∼200 km), little change in Beringia, and a southward shift in Keewatin and Labrador (∼200 km). Low- and high-shrub tundra extended farther north than today. At the LGM, forests were absent from high latitudes. Graminoid and forb tundra abutted on temperate steppe in northwestern Eurasia while prostrate dwarf-shrub, erect dwarf-shrub, and graminoid and forb tundra formed a mosaic in Beringia. Graminoid and forb tundra is restricted today and does not form a large continuous biome, but the pollen data show that it was far more extensive at the LGM, while low- and high-shrub tundra were greatly reduced, illustrating the potential for climate change to dramatically alter the relative areas occupied by different vegetation types.

2003

Geophysical Applications of Vegetation Modeling

Jed Oliver Kaplan

Lund University2001