14,500 years of vegetation and land use history in the upper continental montane zone at Lac de Champex (Valais, Switzerland)

Abstract

Forests in the upper continental montane zone are important ecotones between lowland and subalpine forest ecosystems. A thorough understanding of the past vegetation dynamics at mid elevation is crucial to assess past and future altitudinal range shifts of tree species in response to climate change. Lake sediments from Lac de Champex (1,467 m a.s.l.), a small lake in the Canton Valais in the Central Swiss Alps were analysed to reconstruct the vegetation, land use and fire history for the last 14,500 years, using pollen, macrofossils, non-pollen palynomorphs and charcoal. The record indicates that the tree line had already reached the Champex area during the Allerød (14,000 cal bp) but dropped below the lake’s catchment during the Younger Dryas cooling (12,750–11,550 cal bp). Reforestation started again with Betula and Pinus sylvestris in the Early Holocene at 11,500 cal bp in response to rapid climate warming. Temperate tree species (Ulmus, Tilia, Quercus, Acer) may have reached the altitude of the lake during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (ca. 10,000–5,000 cal bp). Mixed forests with mesophilous Abies alba were dominant between 7,500 and 5,000 cal bp. The mass expansions of Picea abies after 5,000 cal bp and Alnus viridis thickets after 4,500 cal bp were directly linked to increasing human disturbance. High values of coprophilous Sporormiella fungal spores and cereal pollen suggest pastoral and arable farming at the site from the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age onwards (5,000 cal bp). Our data imply that vegetation at intermediate elevation was less affected by human activities than at higher or lower elevations but that these areas served as important stations between the permanent settlements in the valleys and the seasonally occupied alpine huts at higher elevations. We argue that future climate warming will lead to drastic reorganizations of mountain ecosystems.

Radiocarbon sampling efforts for high-precision lake sediment chronologies

“…For instance, in parts of a sediment core with very low sedimentation, a 2 cm-thick sediment slice may already incorporate several hundred years of uncertainty (e.g. Rey et al, 2022), which may even result in a significant bias. In this case and to minimise the subsampling uncertainty and its possible bias, it is worthwhile to increase the sample resolution even if this will almost certainly lead to additional lab work.…”

“…These chronologies generally have relatively wide 95% (2σ) probabilities of many decades to several hundred calibrated years in some cases, resulting in large chronological uncertainties (e.g. Brugger et al, 2016; Pedrotta et al, 2021; Rey et al, 2022) that affect data comparisons and interpretations. Centennial-scale uncertainties may be sufficient for most records dealing with long-term changes at centennial to millennial time scales (e.g.…”

Human impact leads to unexpected oligotrophication and deepwater oxygen increase in a Swiss mountain lake

“…Additionally, the uppermost 20 cm were cored with a Kayak gravity corer. The cores were taken from the eastern part of the lake (coordinates: 46°01′39.025″N/7°07′07.943″E), at a water depth of 5.2 m. Sediment sampling and core correlation are described in detail in Rey et al (2022). These authors also provide a detailed reconstruction of the vegetation and fire history of the region based on pollen, spore, stomata, macrofossil and charcoal analyses of the sediments of the lake.…”

“…14.4°C and the lowest monthly average temperature in January at ca. −2.1° (MeteoSwiss, 2021; Rey et al, 2022). Annual precipitation has been estimated to 786 mm at Orsières (929 m asl) ca.…”

“…Annual precipitation has been estimated to 786 mm at Orsières (929 m asl) ca. 2 km from the lake (MeteoSwiss, 2021; Rey et al, 2022). The lake is surrounded by a closed forest ( Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris, Larix decidua and sparse Betula pendula ) and the catchment is in large parts very steep, except in its western part, which is covered by typical bog vegetation.…”