The distribution of late-Quaternary woody taxa in northern Eurasia: evidence from a new macrofossil database.(Report).

We present a database of late-Quaternary plant macrofossil records for northern Eurasia (from 23[degrees] to 180[degrees]E and 46[degrees] to 76[degrees]N) comprising 281 localities, over 2300 samples and over 13,000 individual records. Samples are individually radiocarbon dated or are assigned ages via age models fitted to sequences of calibrated radiocarbon dates within a section. Tree species characteristic of modern northern forests (e.g. Picea, Larix, tree-Betula) are recorded at least intermittently from prior to the last glacial maximum (LGM), through the LGM and Lateglacial, to the Holocene, and some records locate trees close to the limits of the Scandinavian ice sheet, supporting the hypothesis that some taxa persisted in northern refugia during the last glacial cycle. Northern trees show differing spatio-temporal patterns across Siberia: deciduous trees were widespread in the Lateglacial, with individuals occurring across much of their contemporary ranges, while evergreen conifers expanded northwards to their range limits in the Holocene.

Author Affiliation:

(a) School of Geography, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

(b) Long-term Ecology Laboratory, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK

(c) Department of Biology, University of Bergen, N-5007 Bergen, Norway

(d) Quaternary Research Center, Box 351360, University of Washington, WA 98195-1360 Seattle, USA

(e) Alfred Wegener Institute, Telegrafenberg A43, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany

(f) School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University, Belfast BT9 6AX, UK

(g) Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium

(h) Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Research Station for Quaternary Palaeontology Weimar, Am Jakobskirchhof 4, D-99423 Weimar, Germany

(i) Department of Geography, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524, USA

(j) Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Division, Novosibirsk, Russia

(k) North East Interdisciplinary Research Institute, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Science, Magadan, 685000 Russia

(l) Institute of Geography RAS, Department of Evolutionary Geography, Staromonetny 29, 109017 Moscow, Russia

(m) School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK

(n) Institute of Limnology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Sevastyanova 9, 196105 St Petersburg, Russia

(o) Environmental Change Research Unit, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 65, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Article History:

Received 18 August 2008; Revised 14 April 2009; Accepted 21 April 2009

Source Citation:"The distribution of late-Quaternary woody taxa in northern Eurasia: evidence from a new macrofossil database.(Report)." Quaternary Science Reviews 28.23-24 (Nov 2009): 2445(20). Academic OneFile. Gale. BROWARD COUNTY LIBRARY. 27 Sept. 2009
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