180,000 years of climate change in Europe: avifaunal responses and vegetation implications.

ABSTRACT: Providing an underutilized source of information for paleoenvironmental reconstructions, birds are rarely used to infer paleoenvironments despite their well-known ecology and extensive Quaternary fossil record. Here, we use the avian fossil record to investigate how Western Palearctic bird assemblages and species ranges have changed across the latter part of the Pleistocene, with focus on the links to climate and the implications for vegetation structure. As a key issue we address the full-glacial presence of trees in Europe north of the Mediterranean region, a widely debated issue with evidence for and against emerging from several research fields and data sources. We compiled and analyzed a database of bird fossil occurrences from archaeological sites throughout the Western Palearctic an

SUBMITTER: Holm SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3981757 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature