Compositional turnover and variation in Eemian pollen sequences in Europe

Vivian Felde, Suzette Flantua, Cathy Jenks, Blas Benito, Jacques Louis De Beaulieu, Petr Kuneš, Donatella Magri, Dorota Nalepka, Bjørg Risebrobakken, Cajo ter Braak, Judy Allen, Wojciech Granoszewski, Karin Helmens, Brian Huntley, Ona Kondratienė, Laimdota Kalniņa, Mirosława Kupryjanowicz, Małgorzata Malkiewicz, Alice Milner, Małgorzata NitaBożena Noryśkiewicz, Irena Pidek, Maurice Reille, J. Sakari Salonen, Vaida Šeirienė, Hanna Winter, Polychronis Tzedakis, H. John Birks

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Abstract

The Eemian interglacial represents a natural experiment on how past vegetation with negligible human impact responded to amplified temperature changes compared to the Holocene. Here, we assemble 47 carefully selected Eemian pollen sequences from Europe to explore geographical patterns of (1) total compositional turnover and total variation for each sequence and (2) stratigraphical turnover between samples within each sequence using detrended canonical correspondence analysis, multivariate regression trees, and principal curves. Our synthesis shows that turnover and variation are highest in central Europe (47–55°N), low in southern Europe (south of 45°N), and lowest in the north (above 60°N). These results provide a basis for developing hypotheses about causes of vegetation change during the Eemian and their possible drivers.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalVegetation History and Archaeobotany
Early online date1 Apr 2019
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 1 Apr 2019

Keywords

  • detrended canonical correspondence analysis
  • extrinsic and intrinsic processes
  • inertia
  • last interglacial dataset
  • multivariate regression trees
  • neutral processes
  • principal curves

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