TY - JOUR
T1 - The influence of refugial population on Lateglacial and early Holocene vegetational changes in Romania
AU - Feurdean, Angelica
AU - Wohlfarth, Barbara
AU - Björkman, Leif
AU - Tantau, Ioan
AU - Bennike, Ole
AU - Willis, Katherine J.
AU - Farcas, Sorina
AU - Robertsson, Ann Marie
N1 - Funding Information:
Wim Hoek and Björn Berglund are thanked for fruitful remarks and suggestions and Tudor Tamas is thanked for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript and for drawing Fig. 2 . Comments from two anonymous reviewers are greatly acknowledged. Financial support came from Stockholm University, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a Marie Curie Grant (MEIF-CT-2006-024296).
PY - 2007/7
Y1 - 2007/7
N2 - Romania has for a long time been lacking good palaeoenvironmental records, particularly for the Late Quaternary. A chronological framework had been nearly absent and the vegetation development had been reconstructed entirely from pollen data. Data sets from this part of Europe are important for assessing the spatial variability of past vegetation and climatic changes and to reconstruct tree migration routes at the end of the last glacial period. New palaeobotanical evidence has enabled us to address this gap and to provide a more comprehensive picture of the Lateglacial and early Holocene continental environment. This paper reviews results from radiocarbon dated sequences in Romania with the aim to place them in a larger perspective with regard to glacial refugia and tree immigration, and to asses the vegetation response to climatic oscillation from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the early Holocene. This study documents that some coniferous and broad-leaved trees were present prior to 14,700 cal. yr BP in Romania, and thus it appears that this region may have been a refugial area for some tree species. During the Lateglacial, the vegetation shows a distinct response to climatic oscillations at all elevations, although the response is stronger at mid altitude (800-1100 m. a.s.l) than at high altitudes. Moreover, smaller climatic oscillations are only recorded at sites situated at mid altitudes, probably because these areas were located close to the tree line ecotone.
AB - Romania has for a long time been lacking good palaeoenvironmental records, particularly for the Late Quaternary. A chronological framework had been nearly absent and the vegetation development had been reconstructed entirely from pollen data. Data sets from this part of Europe are important for assessing the spatial variability of past vegetation and climatic changes and to reconstruct tree migration routes at the end of the last glacial period. New palaeobotanical evidence has enabled us to address this gap and to provide a more comprehensive picture of the Lateglacial and early Holocene continental environment. This paper reviews results from radiocarbon dated sequences in Romania with the aim to place them in a larger perspective with regard to glacial refugia and tree immigration, and to asses the vegetation response to climatic oscillation from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the early Holocene. This study documents that some coniferous and broad-leaved trees were present prior to 14,700 cal. yr BP in Romania, and thus it appears that this region may have been a refugial area for some tree species. During the Lateglacial, the vegetation shows a distinct response to climatic oscillations at all elevations, although the response is stronger at mid altitude (800-1100 m. a.s.l) than at high altitudes. Moreover, smaller climatic oscillations are only recorded at sites situated at mid altitudes, probably because these areas were located close to the tree line ecotone.
KW - climate
KW - glacial refugia
KW - Lateglacial
KW - plant macrofossils
KW - pollen
KW - Romania
KW - vegetation fluctuation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34249315813&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2006.12.004
DO - 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2006.12.004
M3 - Article
SN - 0034-6667
VL - 145
SP - 305
EP - 320
JO - Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology
JF - Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology
IS - 3-4
ER -