0000000000340860
AUTHOR
Angelica Feurdean
Holocene fires in the central European lowlands and the role of humans
International audience; A major debate concerns the questions of when and to what extent humans affected regional landscapes, especially land cover and associated geomorphological dynamics, significantly beyond natural variability. Fire is both, a natural component of many climate zones and ecosystems around the globe and also closely related to human land cover change. Humans clearly affected natural fire regimes and landscapes in the most recent centuries, acting as prime ignition triggers and later fire suppressors, while Holocene trends in sedimentary charcoal have been mainly associated with climatic factors and partly with Neolithic land cover change. However, little is known since wh…
Last Millennium hydro-climate variability in Central–Eastern Europe (Northern Carpathians, Romania)
Proxy-based reconstructions of climate variability over the last millennium provide important insights for understanding current climate change within a long-term context. Past hydrological changes are particularly difficult to reconstruct, yet rainfall patterns and variability are among the most critical environmental variables. Ombrotrophic bogs, entirely dependent on water from precipitation and sensitive to changes in the balance between precipitation and evapotranspiration, are highly suitable for such hydro-climate reconstructions. We present a multi-proxy analysis (testate amoebae, plant macrofossils, stable carbon isotopes in Sphagnum, pollen, spores and macroscopic charcoal) from …
How warm? How wet? Hydroclimate reconstruction of the past 7500 years in northern Carpathians, Romania
Abstract As natural and anthropogenic ecosystems are dependent on the local water availability, understanding past changes in hydroclimate represents a priority in research concerning past climate variability. Here, we used testate amoebae (TA) and chironomid analysis on a radiocarbon dated complex of small pond and peat bog sediment profiles from an ombrotrophic bog (Taul Muced, northern Carpathians, Romania) to quantitatively determine major hydrological changes and July air temperature over the last 7500 years. Wet mire surface conditions with a pH between 2.3 and 4.5 were inferred for the periods 4500–2700 and 1300–400 cal yr BP by the occurrence of Archerella flavum , Amphitrema wright…
A multi-proxy long-term ecological investigation into the development of a late Holocene calcareous spring-fed fen ecosystem (Raganu Mire) and boreal forest at the SE Baltic coast (Latvia)
Abstract The calcareous substrate of spring-fed fens makes them unique islands of biodiversity, hosting endangered, vulnerable, and protected vascular plants. Hence, spring-fed fens ecosystems require special conservation attention because many of them are destroyed (e.g. drained, forested) and it is extremely difficult or even impossible to restore the unique hydrogeological and geochemical conditions enabling their function. The long-term perspective of paleoecological studies allows indication of former wetland ecosystem states and provides understanding of their development over millennia. To examine the late Holocene dynamics of a calcareous spring-fed fen (Raganu Mire) ecosystem on th…
The Eurasian Modern Pollen Database (EMPD), version 2
The Eurasian (née European) Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) was established in 2013 to provide a public database of high-quality modern pollen surface samples to help support studies of past climate, land cover, and land use using fossil pollen. The EMPD is part of, and complementary to, the European Pollen Database (EPD) which contains data on fossil pollen found in Late Quaternary sedimentary archives throughout the Eurasian region. The EPD is in turn part of the rapidly growing Neotoma database, which is now the primary home for global palaeoecological data. This paper describes version 2 of the EMPD in which the number of samples held in the database has been increased by 60% from 4826 to…
Holocene fire activity during low-natural flammability periods reveals scale-dependent cultural human-fire relationships in Europe
Abstract Fire is a natural component of global biogeochemical cycles and closely related to changes in human land use. Whereas climate-fuel relationships seem to drive both global and subcontinental fire regimes, human-induced fires are prominent mainly on a local scale. Furthermore, the basic assumption that relates humans and fire regimes in terms of population densities, suggesting that few human-induced fires should occur in periods and areas of low population density, is currently debated. Here, we analyze human-fire relationships throughout the Holocene and discuss how and to what extent human-driven fires affected the landscape transformation in the Central European Lowlands (CEL). W…
Development of Rich Fen on the SE Baltic Coast, Latvia, during the Last 7500 Years, Using Paleoecological Proxies: Implications for Plant Community Development and Paleoclimatic Research
We present the paleoecological development of a rich fen located in the dune area on the SE Baltic coast, during the last 7500 years. The Apsuciems Mire hosts rare and endangered plant communities in Europe, such as Schoenus ferrugineus and Cladium mariscus. Analysis at high-resolution of plant macroremains in two peat cores was carried out to reconstruct local vegetation succession and fluctuations in moisture availability on the peatland, while a pollen record was developed to reconstruct plant succession, moisture variability and human activity at the regional scale. Based on the presence or the absence of macroremains of plants that occur in wet habitat e.g. Cladium mariscus, Schoenople…
Broadleaf deciduous forest counterbalanced the direct effect of climate on Holocene fire regime in hemiboreal/boreal region (NE Europe)
Abstract Disturbances by fire are essential for the functioning of boreal/hemiboreal forests, but knowledge of long-term fire regime dynamics is limited. We analysed macrocharcoal morphologies and pollen of a sediment record from Lake Lielais Svētiņu (eastern Latvia), and in conjunction with fire traits analysis present the first record of Holocene variability in fire regime, fuel sources and fire types in boreal forests of the Baltic region. We found a phase of moderate to high fire activity during the cool and moist early (mean fire return interval; mFRI of ∼280 years; 11,700–7500 cal yr BP) and the late (mFRI of ∼190 years; 4500–0 cal yr BP) Holocene and low fire activity (mFRI of ∼630 y…
Rich fen development in CE Europe, resilience to climate change and human impact over the last ca. 3500 years
Here, for the first time in SE Poland, we document the long-term development of a rich fen and assess its sensitivity to climate change and human impacts over the last ca. 3500 years. Our results are based on a high-resolution, continuous plant macrofossil remains, mollusc and pollen record, complemented by geochemical, mineral magnetic and physical characterisation, and radiocarbon dating from Bagno Serebryskie rich fen located in SE Poland. Based on the palaeoecological data we distinguished five stages of wet habitat conditions: 5000–3300, 2800–2150, 1600–1100, 750–230, 150–10 cal yr BP and five dry periods at ca. 3300–2800, 2150–1600, 1100–750, 230–150, 10 to − 64 cal yr BP. The pollen …