Climate and human induced hydrological change since AD 800 in an ombrotrophic mire in Pomerania (N Poland) tracked by testate amoebae, macro-fossils, pollen and tree rings of pine

This high-resolution, multiproxy, palaeoenvironmental study of the Slowinskie Blota raised bog in N Poland, 10km from the Baltic Sea, covering the last 1200 years reveals different aspects of environmental change in a range of spatial scales from local to regional. Testate amoebae allowed quantitative reconstruction of the local water table using a transfer function based on a training set from N and W Poland. Special attention is paid to the testate amoeba Arcella discoides, which responds to rapid water-table fluctuations more than to average surface wetness. Macrofossils supported by local pollen tracked the local vegetation dynamics caused by local human impact and disturbance, including nutrients. Regional pollen showed human-induced landscape change outside the bog. Tree rings of Pinus sylvestris reflected the history of tree establishment and desiccation of the bog. Strong correlations between DCA axes 1 of regional pollen, of macrofossils and of testate amoebae, and a testate-amoebae-based water-table reconstruction that excludes A. discoides, indicate that changes on all spatial scales are linked, which is explained by a strong hydrologic connection between bog and surroundings. The combination of proxies shows that groundwater levels were modified by both human impact and climate change

Late Glacial and Holocene Vegetation Changes in the Wigry National Park, Ne Poland – New Pollen Data from Three Small Dystrophic Lakes

The main phases of the Late Glacial and Holocene development of vegetation in the Wigry National Park were reconstructed based on the pollen analysis of sediments from three small dystrophic lakes (Lake Suchar Wielki, Lake Suchar II and Lake Ślepe). At the current stage of research, the age of the studied deposits was determined by AMS radiocarbon dating of few samples only. This meant that the chronology of the investigated sections had to be estimated also indirectly using their palynological correlation with the radiometrically well-dated section from Lake Wigry. The obtained pollen data confirmed the picture of the postglacial vegetation changes of the Wigry National Park, which was based on earlier studies of Lake Wigry. Furthermore, it documented the existence, mainly in the Preboreal and Atlantic chronozones, of temporary changes in vegetation, which might be a reaction to a short-lived cold fluctuations of climate