The origin of grasslands in the temperate forest zone of east-central Europe: long-term legacy of climate and human impact.

ABSTRACT: The post-glacial fate of central European grasslands has stimulated palaeoecological debates for a century. Some argued for the continuous survival of open land, while others claimed that closed forest had developed during the Middle Holocene. The reasons behind stability or changes in the proportion of open land are also unclear. We aim to reconstruct regional vegetation openness and test the effects of climate and human impact on vegetation change throughout the Holocene. We present a newly dated pollen record from north-western fringes of the Pannonian Plain, east-central Europe, and reconstruct Holocene regional vegetation development by the REVEALS model for 27 pollen-equivalent taxa. Estimated vegetation is correlated in the same area with a human activity model based on all availabl

SUBMITTER: Kunes P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5433559 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature