Spatial Fingerprint of Younger Dryas Cooling and Warming in Eastern North America

The Younger Dryas (YD, 12.9–11.7 ka) is the most recent, near‐global interval of abrupt climate change with rates similar to modern global warming. Understanding the causes and biodiversity effects of YD climate changes requires determining the spatial fingerprints of past temperature changes. Here we build pollen‐based and branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether‐based temperature reconstructions in eastern North America (ENA) to better understand deglacial temperature evolution. YD cooling was pronounced in the northeastern United States and muted in the north central United States. Florida sites warmed during the YD, while other southeastern sites maintained a relatively stable climate. This fingerprint is consistent with an intensified subtropical high during the YD and demonstrates that interhemispheric responses were more complex spatially in ENA than predicted by the bipolar seesaw model. Reduced‐amplitude or antiphased millennial‐scale temperature variability in the southeastern United States may support regional hotspots of biodiversity and endemism

BioDeepTime : a database of biodiversity time series for modern and fossil assemblages

We thank the Paleosynthesis Project and the Volkswagen Stiftung for funding that supported this project (Az 96 796). M.C.R. acknowledges the German Research Foundation (DFG) for funding through the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Ocean Floor – Earth's Uncharted Interface’ (EXC 2077, grant no. 390741603). E.E.S. acknowledges funding from Leverhulme Trust grant RPG-201170, the Leverhulme Prize and the National Science Research Council grant NE/V011405/1. Q.J.L. and L.N. acknowledge support from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association (2019310) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS-WX2021SF-0205). A.M.P. acknowledges funding from the Leverhulme Trust through research grant RPG-2019-402. M.D. acknowledges funding from Leverhulme Trust through the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (RC-2018-021) and a research grant (RPG-2019-402), and the European Union (ERC coralINT, 101044975). L. H. L. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (macroevolution.abc ERC grant no. 724324). K.H.P acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (DGE-2139841). H.H.M.H. acknowledges support from Peter Buck Postdoc Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution. A.T. acknowledges funding from the Slovak Research and Development Agency (APVV 22-0523) and the Slovak Scientific Grant Agency (VEGA 02/0106/23).Motivation We have little understanding of how communities respond to varying magnitudes and rates of environmental perturbations across temporal scales. BioDeepTime harmonizes assemblage time series of presence and abundance data to help facilitate investigations of community dynamics across timescales and the response of communities to natural and anthropogenic stressors. BioDeepTime includes time series of terrestrial and aquatic assemblages of varying spatial and temporal grain and extent from the present-day to millions of years ago. Main Types of Variables Included BioDeepTime currently contains 7,437,847 taxon records from 10,062 assemblage time series, each with a minimum of 10 time steps. Age constraints, sampling method, environment and taxonomic scope are provided for each time series. Spatial Location and Grain The database includes 8752 unique sampling locations from freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Spatial grain represented by individual samples varies from quadrats on the order of several cm2 to grid cells of ~100 km2. Time Period and Grain BioDeepTime in aggregate currently spans the last 451?million years, with the 10,062 modern and fossil assemblage time series ranging in extent from years to millions of years. The median extent of modern time series is 18.7?years and for fossil series is 54,872?years. Temporal grain, the time encompassed by individual samples, ranges from days to tens of thousands of years. Major Taxa and Level of Measurement The database contains information on 28,777 unique taxa with 4,769,789 records at the species level and another 271,218 records known to the genus level, including time series of benthic and planktonic foraminifera, coccolithophores, diatoms, ostracods, plants (pollen), radiolarians and other invertebrates and vertebrates. There are to date 7012 modern and 3050 fossil time series in BioDeepTime. Software Format SQLite, Comma-separated values.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Temperature Controls on No-Analog Community Establishment in the Great Lakes Region

Includes Equations, Tables, Figures, Charts, Graphs, Appendices and Bibliography.Temperature reconstructions in eastern North America from pollen are rife in the literature, but these reconstructions cannot be used to study the sensitivity and response time of vegetation to temperature changes. Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGT) have recently been applied to reconstruct temperature at Silver Lake, OH, where the resulting temperature estimates closely tracked a regional pollen temperature reconstruction for the southern Great Lakes region. Here, we present the second brGDGT temperature record in this region, at Bonnet Lake, OH, using a new method for brGDGT detection and four alternative calibration functions, and reanalyze sediments from Silver Lake. We compare results across brGDGT detection methods, between sites and among calibration functions, and assess calibration uncertainty using a Bayesian linear regression. Of the calibration functions, MAT MBT′5Me reproduced the regional pollen stack and existing temperature record from Silver Lake most closely but is ~2°C warmer on average than the existing brGDGT temperature record. In the Bayesian regression analyses, the 95% credible interval when using the calibration from Weijers et al. (2007) was +/- 12.3°C. The MAT MBT′5Me calibration from De Jonge et al. (2014) had a smaller uncertainty (+/- 9.8°C 95% credible interval), likely resulting from a reduced sensitivity of brGDGT methylation to pH. These uncertainties are based only on analyses of the calibration data and likely overestimate reconstruction uncertainty, because calibration soil samples are heterogenous at the sampling scale and are at locations distant from the corresponding temperature measurement. Uncertainty can be reduced by creating improved calibration datasets of modern lake sediments. Despite uncertainty in absolute temperature and range, climatic trends are closely similar among brGDGT reconstructions and provide insight into the temperature drivers of past vegetation dynamics. Picea decline begins shortly after the start of Bølling-Allerød warming. The establishment and disappearance of no-analog communities lag temperature change by 200-500 years at Bonnet Lake and Silver Lake. The lack of synchrony in the timing of warming and no-analog community establishment at Bonnet Lake and Silver Lake, but agreement in the sequence of events, indicates that local climate is an important control on vegetation assemblages. The extension of brGDGTs to the Great Lakes Region is further supported in this study, but uncertainty in temperature estimates emphasizes the need for improved calibration datasets

Supplementary table and figures from Legacies of millennial-scale climate oscillations in contemporary biodiversity in eastern North America

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has caused significant climate changes over the past 90 000 years. Prior work has hypothesized that these millennial-scale climate variations effected past and contemporary biodiversity, but the effects are understudied. Moreover, few biogeographic models have accounted for uncertainties in palaeoclimatic simulations of millennial-scale variability. We examine whether refuges from millennial-scale climate oscillations have left detectable legacies in the patterns of contemporary species richness in eastern North America. We analyse 13 palaeoclimate estimates from climate simulations and proxy-based reconstructions as predictors for contemporary richness for amphibians, passerine birds, mammals, reptiles and trees. Results suggest that past climate changes due to AMOC variations have left weak but detectable imprints on the contemporary richness of mammals and trees. High temperature stability, precipitation increase and an apparent climate fulcrum in the southeastern USA across millennial-scale climate oscillations aligns with high biodiversity in the region. These findings support the hypothesis that the southeastern USA may have acted as a biodiversity refuge. However, for some taxa, the strength and direction of palaeoclimate-richness relationships varies among different palaeoclimate estimates, pointing to the importance of palaeoclimatic ensembles and the need for caution when basing biogeographic interpretations on individual palaeoclimate simulations.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biodiversity dynamics and stewardship in a transforming biosphere’

Spatial Fingerprint of Younger Dryas Cooling and Warming in Eastern North America

The Younger Dryas (YD, 12.9–11.7 ka) is the most recent, near-global interval of abrupt climate change with rates similar to modern global warming. Understanding the causes and biodiversity effects of YD climate changes requires determining the spatial fingerprints of past temperature changes. Here we build pollen-based and branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether-based temperature reconstructions in eastern North America (ENA) to better understand deglacial temperature evolution. YD cooling was pronounced in the northeastern United States and muted in the north central United States. Florida sites warmed during the YD, while other southeastern sites maintained a relatively stable climate. This fingerprint is consistent with an intensified subtropical high during the YD and demonstrates that interhemispheric responses were more complex spatially in ENA than predicted by the bipolar seesaw model. Reduced-amplitude or antiphased millennial-scale temperature variability in the southeastern United States may support regional hotspots of biodiversity and endemism. © 2020. The Authors.National Science FoundationOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

More than one way to kill a spruce forest: The role of fire and climate in the late‐glacial termination of spruce woodlands across the southern Great Lakes

In the southern Great Lakes Region, North America, between 19,000 and 8,000 years ago, temperatures rose by 2.5-6.5 degrees C and spruce Picea forests/woodlands were replaced by mixed-deciduous or pine Pinus forests. The demise of Picea forests/woodlands during the last deglaciation offers a model system for studying how changing climate and disturbance regimes interact to trigger declines of dominant species and vegetation-type conversions. The role of rising temperatures in driving the regional demise of Picea forests/woodlands is widely accepted, but the role of fire is poorly understood. We studied the effect of changing fire activity on Picea declines and rates of vegetation composition change using fossil pollen and macroscopic charcoal from five high-resolution lake sediment records. The decline of Picea forests/woodlands followed two distinct patterns. At two sites (Stotzel-Leis and Silver Lake), fire activity reached maximum levels during the declines and both charcoal accumulation rates and fire frequency were significantly and positively associated with vegetation composition change rates. At these sites, Picea declined to low levels by 14 kyr BP and was largely replaced by deciduous hardwood taxa like ash Fraxinus, hop-hornbeam/hornbeam Ostrya/Carpinus and elm Ulmus. However, this ecosystem transition was reversible, as Picea re-established at lower abundances during the Younger Dryas. At the other three sites, there was no statistical relationship between charcoal accumulation and vegetation composition change rates, though fire frequency was a significant predictor of rates of vegetation change at Appleman Lake and Triangle Lake Bog. At these sites, Picea declined gradually over several thousand years, was replaced by deciduous hardwoods and high levels of Pinus and did not re-establish during the Younger Dryas. Synthesis. Fire does not appear to have been necessary for the climate-driven loss of Picea woodlands during the last deglaciation, but increased fire frequency accelerated the decline of Picea in some areas by clearing the way for thermophilous deciduous hardwood taxa. Hence, warming and intensified fire regimes likely interacted in the past to cause abrupt losses of coniferous forests and could again in the coming decades.National Science FoundationOpen access articleThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

BioDeepTime:a database of biodiversity time series for modern and fossil assemblages

Motivation We have little understanding of how communities respond to varying magnitudes and rates of environmental perturbations across temporal scales. BioDeepTime harmonizes assemblage time series of presence and abundance data to help facilitate investigations of community dynamics across timescales and the response of communities to natural and anthropogenic stressors. BioDeepTime includes time series of terrestrial and aquatic assemblages of varying spatial and temporal grain and extent from the present-day to millions of years ago. Main Types of Variables Included BioDeepTime currently contains 7,437,847 taxon records from 10,062 assemblage time series, each with a minimum of 10 time steps. Age constraints, sampling method, environment and taxonomic scope are provided for each time series. Spatial Location and Grain The database includes 8752 unique sampling locations from freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Spatial grain represented by individual samples varies from quadrats on the order of several cm2 to grid cells of ~100 km2. Time Period and Grain BioDeepTime in aggregate currently spans the last 451 million years, with the 10,062 modern and fossil assemblage time series ranging in extent from years to millions of years. The median extent of modern time series is 18.7 years and for fossil series is 54,872 years. Temporal grain, the time encompassed by individual samples, ranges from days to tens of thousands of years. Major Taxa and Level of Measurement The database contains information on 28,777 unique taxa with 4,769,789 records at the species level and another 271,218 records known to the genus level, including time series of benthic and planktonic foraminifera, coccolithophores, diatoms, ostracods, plants (pollen), radiolarians and other invertebrates and vertebrates. There are to date 7012 modern and 3050 fossil time series in BioDeepTime. Software Format SQLite, Comma-separated values

Code and data used for the study: 'BioDeepTime: a database of biodiversity time series for modern and fossil assemblages'

The repository includes code and data to reproduce the results in the manuscript ‘BioDeepTime: a database of biodiversity time series for modern and fossil assemblages' by Smith et al. (analysis_biodeeptime.zip)