Publication details
Identification of past wetland habitats, their commonness and analogism using macrofossil indicators derived from large vegetation databases
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Global Ecology and Conservation |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | Odkaz na stránku časopisu |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2026.e04157 |
| Keywords | EUNIS habitat indication; Ecosystem dynamics; Millennial-scale changes |
| Attached files | |
| Description | We present a novel method to identify past habitats by interconnecting plant macrofossil and vegetation databases. We utilised the recently developed FEVER index, aimed for indicating vegetation types or habitats using fossil assemblages, and calibrated it with recent cross-climate European vegetation data. When applied to the extensive supra-regional macrofossil database, the method succeeded in reconstructing changes in habitat proportion in Central European wetlands over the past 15,000 years. The reconstruction is ecologically well interpretable, with aquatic and most fen habitats dominating in the oldest periods, while waterlogged forests and bogs expanded since the Middle Holocene due to macroclimatic reasons. Treeless fens reappeared and wet grasslands initiated in the last two millennia due to anthropogenic disturbances and landscape deforestation. The method further allows for quantifying the analogism between past and recent communities of the same habitat. Most habitats, except for calcareous quaking mires and wet shrub tundra, increased analogism in the latter half of the Holocene. We share an R script and a European-scale calibration dataset for wide use. |
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