Palaeoecological evidence of changes in vegetation and climate during the Holocene in the pre-Polar Urals, northeast European Russia

This study investigated Holocene tree-line history and climatic change in the pre-Polar Urals, northeast European Russia. A sediment core from Mezhgornoe Lake situated at the present-day alpine tree-line was studied for pollen, plant macrofossils, Cladocera and diatoms. A peat section from Vangyr Mire in the nearby mixed mountain taiga zone was analysed for pollen. The results suggest that the study area experienced a climatic optimum in the early Holocene and that summer temperatures were at least 2°C warmer than today. Tree birch immigrated to the Mezhgornoe Lake area at the onset of the Holocene. Mixed spruce forests followed at ca. 9500-9000 14C yr BP. Climate was moist and the water level of Mezhgornoe Lake rose rapidly. The hypsithermal phase lasted until ca. 5500-4500 14C yr BP, after which the mixed forest withdrew from the Mezhgornoe catchment as a result of the climate cooling. The gradual altitudinal downward shift of vegetation zones resulted in the present situation, with larch forming the tree-line

Effect of Temperature on the Size of Sedimentary Remains of Littoral Chydorids

The body size of aquatic invertebrates is, to a great extent, dependent on ambient temperature, but size distributions are also determined by other factors like food supply and predation. The effect of temperature on organisms is formulated in the temperature–size hypothesis, which predicts a smaller body size with increasing temperature. In this study, the effect of temperature on the subfossil remains of three littoral Cladocera (Alona affnis, A. quadrangularis, and Chydorus cf. sphaericus) was investigated. Exoskeletal remains of these species can be found in large numbers in lacustrine sediments and over a wide north–south range in Europe. The total length of both headshield and postabdomen for A. affinis and A. quadrangularis and carapace length for C. cf. sphaericus were measured to observe their response to changes in latitude and temperature. A different response to ambient temperature in the growth of body parts was observed. The size of the headshields of both Alona species and of the carapace of Chydorus was significantly larger in colder regions as opposed to warm ones. It turned out that the postabdomen was not a good predictor of ambient temperature. While the sizes of all remains increased with latitude, the sizes of the Alona remains was smaller in the mountain lakes of the Southern Carpathians than in other cold lakes, in this case in Finland, a fact indicative of the importance of other factors on size distribution. This study demonstrates that a morphological response to climate is present in littoral cladocerans, and, therefore, changes in the length of headshield and carapace may be used as a proxy for climate changes in paleolimnological records

Comparison of two methods of counting microscopic charcoal particles in peat

A peat monolith of the topmost 92.5 cm of Slåttmossen, a bog in Helsinki/Vantaa, S Finland, was analysed for microscopic charcoal with two methods. In the first, the number of charcoal particles was counted, irrespective of their size; in the second, the total area of charcoal was calculated in seven size classes. The peat monolith was also analysed for pollen. The results show that human activity has played an important role in vegetation changes at the site and has also influenced the fire regime, as new land for cultivation was cleared with fire up to the 18th century. The ratio for charcoal and arboreal pollen concentrations was calculated to eliminate the effect of concentration peaks in the more humified peat layers. After these corrections, both methods gave almost identical results; the size class method was not superior in any way. The distribution of larger charcoal particles provided no clear evidence of individual fires nearby

Pollen and charcoal analyses from Lake Etu-Mustajärvi, Southern Finland, with special reference to an early Holocene Urtica pollen maximum

Sediments of a small lake, Etu-Mustajärvi, in southern Finland, were studied with respect to their fossil pollen and charcoal content. Pollen analysis showed a typical development of vegetation from the earliest Holocene onwards, since the isolation of the lake from the Baltic Ice Lake. The emerged land was first colonised by herbs and bushes, and for the first time in Finland an Urtica maximum of 4 % is reported for this period. It is considered possible that Urtica may have been a commoner part of the pollen flora of newly emerged land in south Finland than has been previously thought. Charcoal analysis was undertaken to examine the Holocene history of forest fires in the area. At least in the Lammi area, charcoal seems to have been most abundant about 8000-6000 BP, a result which is in apparent disagreement with the general concept that the period was moist and thus forest fire frequency could not have been high

Development of a Litorina Bay at Epoo, near Porvoo, southern Finland

A sediment sequence at Epoo, municipality of Porvoo, on the South coast of Finland, altitude 25 m a.s.l., was studied for Holocene shoreline displacement in the Baltic Sea basin. The sediment sequence is made up of sand, clay-gyttja and drift peat deposited during the Ancylus and Litorina stages of the Baltic Sea. Two cores of clay-gyttja with an intervening sand layer were analysed for diatoms and pollen. The composition of the diatom flora changes from typical fresh-water species of the Ancylus Lake to brackish-water flora indicating transition to the Litorina Sea. The sequence shows a gradual change of a group of separate islands in the Ancylus Lake to larger complexes of dry land because of uplift. As two necks of land were formed, the site developed into a sheltered brackish-water bay, and drift peat accumulated. A radiocarbon age of 6130 ± 50 yr BP obtained from the top of the drift peat links the shore with the Litorina regression. The shore displacement history of the Helsinki-Porvoo area is discussed