Long-term dynamics of the East European forest-steppe ecotoneстатья
Статья опубликована в высокорейтинговом журнале
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Статья опубликована в журнале из списка Web of Science и/или Scopus
Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 17 апреля 2018 г.
Аннотация:agriculture with very few patches of semi-natural vegetation. Little is known about the history of the forest-steppe ecotone in Eastern Europe and here we examine its Holocene dynamics and stability and investigate when it was transformed to the modern
agro-pastoral landscapes.
Location: Mid-Russian Upland.
Methods: We summarize the information from five pollen diagrams for the last 7000 yr and estimate forest cover using the best modern analogue technique. We use the PCA and principal curve analysis to evaluate compositional changes.
Results: The pollen data suggest that the East European forest-steppe boundary was located 50–70 km further northwest from the presumed present position during the period 7000–4500 cal yr BP. After 4500 cal yr BP, it moved approximately 100–130 km to the southeast. Since 2000 cal yr BP land use affected the boundary, while a total forest clearance and transformation to agricultural landscapes took place in the last 400 yr. Pollen data indicate a NW–SE direction of the forest-steppe vegetation gradient. Prior to clearance, open lime–pedunculate oak forests existed in the NW, while the south was characterized by pine woodlandswith an admixture of oak and lime with 20–40%forest cover.
Conclusions: The East European forest-steppe ecotone is sensitive to climate change. The Late Holocene expansion of forest cover is in agreement with evidence suggesting an increase in moisture availability during this time. The rapid recovery to a similar composition after human disturbance indicates a high resilience of woodland in the ecotone, which may be connected to a naturally high disturbance regime, possibly through fire. The information revealed on the position of the gradient and natural composition of the forest is currently not depicted inmaps of the potential natural vegetation.