| 1. |
- Ahlgren, Hans, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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The Baltic grey seal : A 9000-year history of presence and absence
- 2022
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 32:6, s. 569-577
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) has been part of the Baltic Sea fauna for more than 9000 years and has ever since been subjected to extensive human hunting, particularly during the early phases of its presence in the Baltic Sea, but also in the early 20th century. In order to study their temporal genetic structure and to investigate whether there has been a genetically continuous grey seal population in the Baltic, we generated mitochondrial control region data from skeletal remains from ancient grey seals from the archaeological sites Stora Förvar (Sweden) and Neustadt (Germany) and compared these with modern grey seal data. We found that the majority of the Mesolithic grey seals represent haplotypes that is not found in contemporary grey seals, indicating that the Baltic Sea population went extinct, likely due to human overexploitation and environmental change. We hypothesize that grey seals recolonised the Baltic Sea from the North Sea. during the Bronze Age or Iron Age, and that the contemporary Baltic grey seal population is direct descendants of this recolonisation. Our study highlights the power of biomolecular archaeology to understand the factors that shape contemporary marine diversity.
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| 2. |
- Andrén, Elinor, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental changes of the last three centuries indicated by siliceous microfossil records from the southwestern Baltic Sea
- 1999
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 9, s. 25-38
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Four short sediment cores from the southwestern Baltic Sea were analysed with respect to their content of siliceous microfossils. The aim was to detect and date changes in the composition of the diatom flora and to link these changes to variations in the anthropogenic load of nutrients during the last century. The study shows that the most significant change in the diatom assemblages occurred 130-140 years ago. The change is recorded in the sediments as a shift from periphytic diatom taxa to a predominance of planktonic taxa. This indicates that the photic layer has decreased in depth, probably due to eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, which consequently began to affect the area investigated approximately AD 1850. To support the results of a changing ratio of periphytic to planktonic diatoms, diatom accumulation rates were calculated In general, the diatom accumulation rate data show a decrease in the periphytic accumulation rates and an increase in the planktonic accumulation rates towards the sediment surface. Some indications of a colder climate are recorded in the sediments approximately 230 years ago. These results are in accordance with the record of maximum extent of sea ice in the same area and are suggested to represent a late stage in the ‘Little Ice Age’.
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| 3. |
- Andrén, Elinor, et al.
(författare)
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Holocene history of the Baltic Sea as a background for assessing records of human impact in the sediments of the Gotland Basin
- 2000
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 10, s. 687-702
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sediment cores from the Gotland Basin were studied for their siliceous microfossil assemblages and organic carbon content to compare recent environmental changes in the Baltic Sea with its natural long-term history. Age models were constructed using Pb-210, Cs-137 and corrected and calibrated C-14 dates. The transgression that marks the onset of the Ancylus Lake stage is recorded in the sediments as a small increase in organic carbon coinciding with a peak in diatom abundance and increased diatom diversity. A minor occurrence of brackish-freshwater diatoms is recorded in the Ancylus Lake c. 9950-9750 cal. yr BP (c. 8900-8800 C-14 yr BP), correlating with the onset of the Initial Litorina Sea in the Bornholm Basin. A high-productivity event is recorded in the end of the Post-Litorina Sea and corresponds to the Mediaeval warm event. An alteration in the diatom assemblage contemporaneous with a decrease in organic carbon, interpreted as representing a deterioration in the climate, correlates with the start of the ‘Little Ice Age’ about 850-700 cal. yr BP. A change dated to ad 1950-1960 is probably an effect of increased nutrient availability in the open Baltic Sea. This effect of eutrophication was probably caused by increased discharge of nutrients deriving from fertilizers, as the responding diatom species partly indicate a cold climate rather than a warm one, as would have been expected if this had been only a response to the warmer climate documented during the last 100 years or so.
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| 4. |
- Arthur, Frank, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of volcanism on Scandinavian climate and human societies during the Holocene: Insights into the Fimbulwinter eruptions (536/540 AD)
- 2024
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent paleoclimatic research has revealed that volcanic events around 536–540 AD caused severe, short-term global cooling. For this same period, archeological research from various regions evidences significant cultural transformation. However, there is still a lack of understanding of how human societies responded and adapted to extreme climate variability and new circumstances. This study focuses on the effects of the 536/540 AD volcanic event in four Scandinavian regions by exploring the shift in demographic and land use intensity before, during, and after this abrupt climate cooling. To achieve this, we performed climate simulations with and without volcanic eruptions using a dynamically downscaled climate model (iLOVECLIM) at a high resolution (0.25° or ~25 km). We integrated the findings with a comprehensive collection of radiocarbon dates from excavated archeological sites across various Scandinavian regions. Our Earth System Model simulates pronounced cooling (maximum ensemble mean −1.1°C), an abrupt reduction in precipitation, and a particularly acute drop in growing degree days (GDD0) after the volcanic event, which can be used to infer likely impacts on agricultural productivity. When compared to the archeological record, we see considerable regional diversity in the societal response to this sudden environmental event. As a result, this study provides a more comprehensive insight into the demographic chronology of Scandinavia and a deeper understanding of the land-use practices its societies depended on during the 536/540 AD event. Our results suggest that this abrupt climate anomaly amplified a social change already in progress.
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| 5. |
- Augustsson, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of land use and climate change on erosion intensity and sediment geochemistry at Lake Lehmilampi, Finland
- 2013
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 23:9, s. 1247-1259
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to evaluate the possible relationships between erosion intensity and changes in climate and land use during the past 5.5 cal. k years at Lake Lehmilampi, eastern Finland. In this study we compare a detailed geochemical sediment record with (1) forest and land use history inferred from the first pollen and charcoal records from Lake Lehmilampi, and (2) existing archaeological surveys and independent proxy-records of climate change in the study region. The physical and geochemical sediment parameters examined include grain size analysis data and 23 chemical elements, determined with four selective extractions and ICP-MS. There are indications of possible human impact in the lake catchment as early as the Neolithic period, c. 3000-2550 bc, but the first undisputable signs are dated to 1800-100 bc. Cereal pollen reappears at c. ad 1700 and increases rapidly until c. ad 1950. The Holocene Thermal Maximum, its end c. 2000 bc, and the Medieval Climate Anomaly' were major climate events that had a prominent effect on erosion intensity, while human impact was a more significant factor during the period 3000 bc-ad 800 and from ad 1500 onwards. Although signs of changes in erosion intensity found in the sediment were small in this small catchment, they were significant enough to have a clear impact on the fraction of potentially mobile element species. This fraction increases with decreasing erosion intensity, which is probably related to a higher degree of chemical weathering and leaching during periods of decreased erosion.
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| 6. |
- Battarbee, Richard W., et al.
(författare)
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John Birks: Pioneer in quantitative palaeoecology
- 2015
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 25:1, s. 3-16
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- We describe the career of John Birks as a pioneering scientist who has, over a career spanning five decades, transformed palaeoecology from a largely descriptive to a rigorous quantitative science relevant to contemporary questions in ecology and environmental change. We review his influence on students and colleagues not only at Cambridge and Bergen Universities, his places of primary employment, but also on individuals and research groups in Europe and North America. We also introduce the collection of papers that we have assembled in his honour. The papers are written by his former students and close colleagues and span many of the areas of palaeoecology to which John himself has made major contributions. These include the relationship between ecology and palaeoecology, late-glacial and Holocene palaeoecology, ecological succession, climate change and vegetation history, the role of palaeoecological techniques in reconstructing and understanding the impact of human activity on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and numerical analysis of multivariate palaeoecological data.
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| 7. |
- Beaudoin, Anne, et al.
(författare)
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Palaeoenvironmental history of the last six centuries in the Nettilling Lake area (Baffin Island, Canada) : A multi-proxy analysis
- 2016
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : Sage Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 26:11, s. 1835-1846
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Baffin Island region in the eastern Canadian Arctic has recently experienced a rapid warming, possibly unprecedented in millennia. To investigate theresponse of freshwater environments to this warming and place it in a secular perspective, we analyzed a 90-cm-long sediment core from Nettilling Lake,the largest lake of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The core was taken from a part of the lake basin that receives meltwater and sediment inputs from thenearby Penny Ice Cap. The core time scale, established using 137Cs and palaeomagnetic techniques, spans an estimated 600 years. A multi-proxy approachwas used to document changes in the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the sediments. We found evidence for a relatively warm period (mid/late 15th century to mid/late 16th century) during the early part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA), characterized by high sedimentation rates and laminations.This was followed by colder, drier, and windier conditions corresponding to the coldest phase of LIA and coinciding with the latest and most extensiveperiod of regional ice cap expansion (early 16th to late 19th centuries). A rapid warming occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. Variations intitanium (Ti) content in the core, a proxy for detrital sediment inputs, showed good agreement with reconstructed secular variations in summer meltrates on Penny Ice Cap between the mid-14th century and the present-day, providing supporting evidence for a climatic–hydrological connection betweenthe ice cap and Nettilling Lake.
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| 8. |
- Beffa, Giorgia, et al.
(författare)
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A novel, continuous high-resolution palaeoecological record from central Italy suggests comparable land-use dynamics in Southern and Central Europe during the Neolithic
- 2024
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : Sage Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although rare, temporally and taxonomically highly-resolved palaeoecological studies with high chronological precision are essential to perform detailed comparisons with precisely dated independent evidence such as archaeological findings, historical events, or palaeoclimatic data. Using a new highly-resolved and chronologically precise sedimentary record from Lago di Mezzano (central Italy), we reconstruct decadal-scale vegetation, species diversity, and fire dynamics, aiming to better understand the linkages between climate, land use, fire, and plant communities from the Neolithic to the Copper Age (c. 5100–3100 cal. BC). Closed, mixed beech-oak forests, including evergreen Quercus ilex, dominated the landscape around Lago di Mezzano during the Neolithic and were disturbed by repeated opening phases, with important implications for lake biogeochemistry and mixing regimes. This was in conjunction with increasing fire activity to promote agro-pastoral practices, as inferred from increasing charcoal, Cerealia type, Triticum type, Hordeum type, Plantago lanceolata type, and Urtica pollen. Fires, on their turn, augmented species diversity (richness and evenness). The comparison of the Mediterranean record from Lago di Mezzano with available continuous and high-precision submediterranean and cool-temperate palynological sequences suggests comparable land use pulses across Southern and Central European regions, most likely in connection with climate change. The outcomes of this study are not only of palaeoecological and archaeological interest; they may also help to improve projections of ecosystem dynamics under future global change.
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| 9. |
- Belle, Simon
(författare)
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Impacts of anthropogenic eutrophication on the carbon transfers in lacustrine food webs: A paleolimnological assessment in four mountain lakes
- 2024
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Ingår i: Holocene. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 34, s. 604 - 618
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the last decades, the intensification of anthropogenic activities and associated disturbances on lake watersheds have led to major changes in lakes trophic functioning through accelerated eutrophication. In many lakes, these changes are characterized by an unprecedented increase in organic carbon fluxes, potentially leading to a shift in biogeochemical cycles and in the balance between carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding the response of the carbon cycle to natural and anthropogenic environmental changes is becoming a crucial challenge in the context of increasing global pressures. In this study, we reconstructed the changes in the trophic functioning of the benthic and pelagic food web, in response to accelerated eutrophication in four lakes over the last millenium. Changes in carbon pathways in food webs were assessed using stable carbon isotope analysis of chitinous subfossil remains of Daphnia, Bosmina, and Chironomini archived in sedimentary records. Changes in the trophic state were inferred from sedimentary geochemical analysis, including carbon accumulation rates, Chla accumulation rates and carbon-to-nitrogen ratios. Agro-pastoral activities were tracked by analysis of coprophilous ascospores. Results provided by this multi-proxy approach highlight recent disruptions in carbon sources and transfer pathways in lakes food webs. In particular, changes in the carbon isotopic signature of pelagic consumers suggest a recent increase in the use of 13C-depleted carbon sources such as methanogenic or respiration-derived carbon linked to recent changes in trophic state under the intensification of anthropogenic pressures.
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| 10. |
- Bennett, Keith D., et al.
(författare)
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DNA from pollen : principles and potential
- 2006
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Ingår i: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 16:8, s. 1031-1034
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper describes our recent extraction of ancient DNA (aDNA) from Holocene pollen and discusses the potential of the technique for elucidating timescales of evolutionary change. We show that plastid DNA is recoverable and usable from pollen grains of Scots pine Pinus sylvestris from 10 ka and 100 years ago. Comparison of the ancient sequences with modern sequences, obtained from an extant population, establish a first genetic link between modern and fossil samples of Scots pine, providing a genetic continuity through time. One common haplotype is present in each of the three periods investigated, suggesting that it persisted near the lake throughout the postglacial. The retrieval of aDNA from pollen has major implications for palaeoecology by allowing (i) investigation of population-level dynamics in time and space, and (ii) tracing ancestry of populations and developing phylogenetic trees that include extinct as well as extant taxa. The method should work over the last glacial oscillation, thus giving access to ancestry of populations over a crucial period of time for the understanding of the relationship between speciation and climate change.
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