European pollen-based REVEALS land-cover reconstructions for the Holocene: methodology, mapping and potentials
2022
Githumbi, Esther | Fyfe, Ralph | Gaillard, Marie-Jose | Trondman, Anna-Kari | Mazier, Florence | Nielsen, Anne-Birgitte | Poska, Anneli | Sugita, Shinya | Theuerkauf, Martin | Woodbridge, Jessie | Azuara, Julien | Feurdean, Angelica | Grindean, Roxana | Lebreton, Vincent | Marquer, Laurent | Combourieu-Nebout, Nathalie | Stancikaite, Migle | Tanţău, Ioan | Tonkov, Spassimir | Shumilovskikh, Lyudmila | David, Rémi | Leroyer, Chantal | Marguerie, Dominique | Skane University Hospital [Lund] | Linnaeus University | Plymouth University | Géographie de l'environnement (GEODE) ; Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J) ; Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Histoire naturelle de l'Homme préhistorique (HNHP) ; Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Université de Perpignan Via Domitia (UPVD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Georg-August-University of Göttingen = Georg-August-Universität Göttingen | Centre de Recherche en Archéologie, Archéosciences, Histoire (CReAAH) ; Le Mans Université (UM)-Université de Rennes (UR)-Université de Rennes 2 (UR2)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC)-Nantes Université - UFR Histoire, Histoire de l'Art et Archéologie (Nantes Univ - UFR HHAA) ; Nantes Université - pôle Humanités ; Nantes Université (Nantes Univ)-Nantes Université (Nantes Univ)-Nantes Université - pôle Humanités ; Nantes Université (Nantes Univ)-Nantes Université (Nantes Univ) | Ministère de la Culture (MC) | Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes] (ECOBIO) ; Université de Rennes (UR)-Institut Ecologie et Environnement - CNRS Ecologie et Environnement (INEE-CNRS) ; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des sciences de l'environnement de Rennes (OSERen) ; Université de Rennes (UR)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Rennes 2 (UR2)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Rennes 2 (UR2)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE) | This study was funded by the Swedish Research Council VR (Vetenskapsrådet) within the framework of the “Quantification of the bio-geophysical and biogeochemical forcings from anthropogenic de-forestation on regional Holocene climate in Europe, LandClim II” research project. Financial support from Linnaeus University's Faculty of Health and Life Science is acknowledged for Marie-José Gaillard, Anna-Kari Trondman and Esther Githumbi. This is a contribution to the Swedish Strategic Research Area (SRA) MERGE (ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system; http://www.merge.lu.se, last access: 4 April 2022) and to the Past Global Change (PAGES) project and its working group LandCover6k (http://pastglobalchanges.org/landcover6k, last access: 4 April 2022) that in turn received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Academy of Sciences, the US National Science Foundation and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Anneli Poska was supported by the ESF project number PRG323. We thank Sandy Harrison (University of Reading, UK) for providing the pollen records from the EMBSeCBIO project. The work of the data contributors to – and the database managers of – ALPADABA (https://www.neotomadb.org/, last access: 4 April 2022), EMBSECBIO (https://research.reading.ac.uk/palaeoclimate/embsecbio/, last access: 4 April 2022), EPD (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net/index.php, last access: 4 April 2022), LandClimI (Trondman et al., 2015), PALYCZ (https://botany.natur.cuni.cz/palycz/, last access: 4 April 2022) and PALEOPYR (http://paleopyr.univ-tlse2.fr/, last access: 4 April 2022) is gratefully acknowledged. This research has been supported by the Swedish Research Council VR (Vetenskapsrådet) (Quantification of the bio-geophysical and biogeochemical forcings from anthropogenic de-forestation on regional Holocene climate in Europe, LandClim II).
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. Quantitative reconstructions of past land cover are necessary to determine the processes involved in climate–human–land-cover interactions. We present the first temporally continuous and most spatially extensive pollen-based land-cover reconstruction for Europe over the Holocene (last 11 700 cal yr BP). We describe how vegetation cover has been quantified from pollen records at a 1∘ × 1∘ spatial scale using the “Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites” (REVEALS) model. REVEALS calculates estimates of past regional vegetation cover in proportions or percentages. REVEALS has been applied to 1128 pollen records across Europe and part of the eastern Mediterranean–Black Sea–Caspian corridor (30–75∘ N, 25∘ W–50∘ E) to reconstruct the percentage cover of 31 plant taxa assigned to 12 plant functional types (PFTs) and 3 land-cover types (LCTs). A new synthesis of relative pollen productivities (RPPs) for European plant taxa was performed for this reconstruction. It includes multiple RPP values (≥2 values) for 39 taxa and single values for 15 taxa (total of 54 taxa). To illustrate this, we present distribution maps for five taxa (Calluna vulgaris, Cerealia type (t)., Picea abies, deciduous Quercus t. and evergreen Quercus t.) and three land-cover types (open land, OL; evergreen trees, ETs; and summer-green trees, STs) for eight selected time windows. The reliability of the REVEALS reconstructions and issues related to the interpretation of the results in terms of landscape openness and human-induced vegetation change are discussed. This is followed by a review of the current use of this reconstruction and its future potential utility and development. REVEALS data quality are primarily determined by pollen count data (pollen count and sample, pollen identification, and chronology) and site type and number (lake or bog, large or small, one site vs. multiple sites) used for REVEALS analysis (for each grid cell). A large number of sites with high-quality pollen count data will produce more reliable land-cover estimates with lower standard errors compared to a low number of sites with lower-quality pollen count data.
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