From land cover-climate relationships at the subcontinental scale to land cover-environment relationships at the regional and local spatial scale – the contribution of pollen-based quantitative reconstructions of vegetation cover using the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm approach

• The Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (Sugita 2007a,b) includes two models, REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites) that estimates vegetation abundance (% cover) within an area of ca. 100 km x 100 km, and LOVE (LOcal Vegetation Estimates) that estimates vegetation abundance at the local spatial scale, i.e. within the Relevant Source Area of Pollen (RSAP sensu Sugita, 2004) that is the smallest area around the study site for which the reconstruction is valid. The RSAP is estimated by the LOVE model and varies between sites and vegetation settings; so far, it was estimated to vary between < 1 - < 10 km in most ecological settings of the Holocene in NW Europe. We used the REVEALS model and over 600 pollen records from pollen data bases and individual researchers to reconstruct land-cover in NW Europe N of the Alps for key time windows of the Holocene in order to assess model-based reconstructions of anthropogenic land-cover change (ALCC) (e.g. Kaplan et al., 2009) and model (LPJ-GUESS) simulations of past potential (climate-induced vegetation), and to study past land cover – climate interactions using a regional climate model (RCA3). We used the REVEALS model and the complete LRA approach (REVEALS + LOVE models) along with two pollen records from large lakes and three pollen records from small bogs to reconstruct the local-scale land-cover in central Småland, southern Sweden, to study the relationship between vegetation composition, fire, climate and human impact at the regional and local spatial scales with the objective to discuss biodiversity issues. Our results suggest that i) past subcontinental to regional ALCC did influence regional climate through biogeophysical processes at the landatmosphere interface (Strandberg et al., submitted), and ii) local land-cover change, both natural and anthropogenic, govern environmental changes such as fire and biodiversity (Cui et al., 2013; Cui et al., submitted).

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Environmental Science

Miljövetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)