Historical land‐use and landscape change in southern Sweden and implications for present and future biodiversity

Abstract

The two major aims of this study are (1) To test the performance of the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA) to quantify past landscape changes using historical maps and related written sources, and (2) to use the LRA and map reconstructions for a better understanding of the origin of landscape diversity and the recent loss of species diversity. Southern Sweden, hemiboreal vegetation zone. The LRA was applied on pollen records from three small bogs for four time windows between AD 1700 and 2010. The LRA estimates of % cover for woodland/forest, grassland, wetland, and cultivated land were compared with those extracted from historical maps within 3-km radius around each bog. Map-extracted land-use categories and pollen-based LRA estimates (in % cover) of the same land-use categories show a reasonable agreement in several cases; when they do not agree, the assumptions used in the data (maps)-model (LRA) comparison are a better explanation of the discrepancies between the two than possible biases of the LRA modeling approach. Both the LRA reconstructions and the historical maps reveal between-site differences in landscape characteristics through time, but they demonstrate comparable, profound transformations of the regional and local landscapes over time and space due to the agrarian reforms in southern Sweden during the 18th and 19th centuries. The LRA was found to be the most reasonable approach so far to reconstruct quantitatively past landscape changes from fossil pollen data. The existing landscape diversity in the region at the beginning of the 18th century had its origin in the long-term regional and local vegetation and land-use history over millennia. Agrarian reforms since the 18th century resulted in a dramatic loss of landscape diversity and evenness in both time and space over the last two centuries leading to a similarly dramatic loss of species (e.g., beetles).

Two hundred years of land-use change in the South Swedish Uplands: comparison of historical map-based estimates with a pollen-based reconstruction using the landscape reconstruction algorithm

“…This study uses the simulation-based estimates of the past RSAP-the area within a 1,740 m radius at Å bodasjön and a 1,440 m radius at Lindhultsgöl. These are similar to the estimates for Danish lakes (3-27 ha) based on historical maps in 1800 (Nielsen and Sugita 2005) and to the estimates for Småland peatbogs (same area as our study, Cui et al 2014) based on the forward modeling approach. Consistent with Nielsen and Odgaard (2010), we assume that the RSAP is constant through time for our reconstruction.…”

“…A similar study in the same region (Cu 2013; Cui et al 2014) concluded that there are clear similarities between the regional estimates. Moreover, the general agreement between the LRA-and QADbased results provides confidence in the interpretation of the differences in vegetation and land-use cover between the two sites, even though some of the assumptions of both approaches are not fully satisfied.…”

“…This approach consists of two steps, first it uses the REVEALS model (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites) for a reconstruction of the regional vegetation composition within 50-100 km radii using pollen records from large sites ([100-500 ha), and secondly it uses the LOVE model (LOcal Vegetation Estimates) for a reconstruction of the vegetation composition within the relevant source area of pollen (RSAP; Sugita 1994) at smaller-sized sites in the same region. Although the REVEALS model has been frequently tested and applied in Europe (Hellman et al 2008a, b;Sugita et al 2008;Soepboer et al 2010;Fredh et al 2012Fredh et al , 2013Nielsen et al 2012), the entire LRA process has been tested empirically in only a few studies (Nielsen and Odgaard 2010;Sugita et al 2010;Overballe-Petersen et al 2012;Cui 2013;Cui et al 2014).…”

Are pollen records from small sites appropriate for REVEALS model-based quantitative reconstructions of past regional vegetation? An empirical test in southern Sweden

“…In bold: large lakes Veget Hist Archaeobot (2016) 25:131-151 133 of past vegetation composition have already been shown to be useful for (i) the quantitative reconstruction of vegetation/plant cover at the local spatial scale (10-100 km 2 ) using Sugita's LRA (e.g. Nielsen and Odgaard 2010;Cui et al 2013Cui et al , 2014Mazier et al 2015;Hultberg et al 2015), (ii) the study of regional spatio-temporal land-cover/landscape dynamics over the past millennia (e.g. Marquer et al 2014;Fyfe et al 2013;Nielsen et al 2012;Trondman 2014), (iii) the evaluation of anthropogenic land-cover change scenarios (ALCCs) (Gaillard et al 2010) and (iv) the study of land cover-climate interactions in the past (Strandberg et al 2014).…”

From deciduous forest to open landscape: application of new approaches to help understand cultural landscape development in western Norway

“…So far, estimates achieved from this approach are found to be representative of the vegetation in Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Estonia and Norway (Hellman et al 2008;Nielsen and Odgaard 2010;Soepboer et al 2010;Fredh 2012;Cui et al 2013;Overballe-Petersen et al 2013;Poska et al 2014;Hjelle et al 2015), and it has been applied to reconstruct vegetation cover on different spatial scales (e.g. Nielsen et al 2012;Fyfe et al 2013;Cui et al 2014;Marquer et al 2014;Hultberg et al 2015;Trondman et al 2015).…”