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Millennial climatic fluctuations are key to the structure of last glacial ecosystems

  • Whereas fossil evidence indicates extensive treeless vegetation and diverse grazing megafauna in Europe and northern Asia during the last glacial, experiments combining vegetation models and climate models have to-date simulated widespread persistence of trees. Resolving this conflict is key to understanding both last glacial ecosystems and extinction of most of the mega-herbivores. Using a dynamic vegetation model (DVM) we explored the implications of the differing climatic conditions generated by a general circulation model (GCM) in “normal” and “hosing” experiments. Whilst the former approximate interstadial conditions, the latter, designed to mimic Heinrich Events, approximate stadial conditions. The “hosing” experiments gave simulated European vegetation much closer in composition to that inferred from fossil evidence than did the “normal” experiments. Given the short duration of interstadials, and the rate at which forest cover expanded during the late-glacial and early Holocene, our results demonstrate the importance of millennial variability in determining the character of last glacial ecosystems.

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Metadaten
Author:Brian Huntley, Judy R. M. Allen, Yvonne C. Collingham, Thomas HicklerORCiD, Adrian M. Lister, Joy Singarayer, Anthony J. Stuart, Martin T. Sykes, Paul J. ValdesORCiD
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-298054
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061963
ISSN:1932-6203
Parent Title (English):PLoS One
Publisher:PLoS
Place of publication:Lawrence, Kan.
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of first Publication:2013/04/16
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2013/04/17
Volume:8
Issue:(4): e61963
Page Number:7
Note:
Copyright: © 2013 Huntley et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
HeBIS-PPN:337860513
Institutes:Geowissenschaften / Geographie / Geowissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 55 Geowissenschaften, Geologie / 550 Geowissenschaften
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0