Mid-Holocene vegetation history and Neolithic land-use in the Lake Banyoles area (Girona, Spain)

Revelles, Jordi; Cho, S.; Iriarte, Eneko; Burjachs, Francesc; Geel, B. van; Palomo, Antoni; Piqué, Raquel; Peña‐Chocarro, Leonor; Terradas, Xavier

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2015.06.002

Cited by 66 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…Most of the sites that experienced mid-Holocene fire and turnover increases are located near Neolithic settlements (BAN: Revelles et al, 2015;CAS: Ejarque et al, 2016;GAD: Carrión et al, 2003;NAV: Carrión and van Geel, 1999).…”

Section: Fire-led Vegetation Turnovermentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans take control of fire-driven diversity changes in Mediterranean Iberia’s vegetation during the mid–late Holocene

et al. 2019

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Fire regime changes are considered a major threat to future biodiversity in the Mediterranean Basin. Such predictions remain untested, however, given that fire regime changes and their ecological impacts occur over timescales that are too long for direct observation. Here we analyse centennial-3 and millennial-scale shifts in fire regimes and compositional turnover to track the consequences of fire regime shifts on Mediterranean vegetation diversity. We estimated rate-of-change, richness and compositional turnover (beta diversity) in 13 selected high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mediterranean Iberia and compared these to charcoal-inferred fire regime changes. Event sequence analysis showed fire regime shifts to be significantly temporally associated with compositional turnover, particularly during the last three millennia. We find that the timing and direction of fire and diversity change in Mediterranean Iberia are best explained by long-term human-environment interactions dating back perhaps 7500 years. Evidence suggests that Neolithic burning propagated a first wave of increasing vegetation openness and promoted woodland diversity around early farming settlements. Landscape transformation intensified around 5500-5000 cal. yr BP and accelerated during the last two millennia, as fire led to permanent transitions in ecosystem state. These fire episodes increased open vegetation diversity, decreased woodland diversity and significantly altered richness on a regional scale. Our study suggests that anthropogenic fires played a primary role in diversity changes in Mediterranean Iberia. Their millennia-long legacy in today's vegetation should be considered for biodiversity conservation and landscape management.

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Section: Fire-led Vegetation Turnovermentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans take control of fire-driven diversity changes in Mediterranean Iberia’s vegetation during the mid–late Holocene

et al. 2019

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“…The sediments in Banyoles Lake (174 m. a. s. l., [12]) provide a good record of the changes in landscape during the Holocene (Figure 1). The progressive warming led to the dominance of broadleaved trees in lowland deciduous forests (Quercus and Corylus), accompanied by pine forests in higher areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Peñuelas

Sardans

Filella

et al. 2017

Forests

109

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“…Most paleofire reconstructions of the Iberian Peninsula are based on microscopic charcoal (<150 μm) from pollen slides (e.g., Burjachs & Expósito, 2015;Revelles et al, 2015;Burjachs et al, 2016aBurjachs et al, , 2016bExpósito et al, 2017), which mainly record a regional signal (Clark, 1988(Clark, , 1989. Different methodologies, insufficient temporal resolution, and, sometimes, a weak chronological control hamper the implementation of comparative studies among sites (Tinner et al, 1998;Vannière et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paleofire Dynamics in Central Spain during the Late Holocene: The Role of Climatic and Anthropogenic Forcing

López‐Sáez¹,

Vargas

Fernández

et al. 2017

Land Degrad Dev

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The use of fire and, consequently, its severity and incidence on the environment have grown steadily during the last millennia throughout the Mediterranean. This issue can be assessed in several mountain ranges of central Iberia where changes in the management policy on anthropic activities and exploitation of high‐mountain environments have promoted a remarkable increase on fire frequency. Our research focuses on fire dynamics throughout the last 3,000 years from three peat bog charcoal records of the Gredos range (central Iberia). Our aim is to reconstruct past fire regimes according to forest vegetation typology (Castanea sativa, Pinus pinaster, and Pinus sylvestris). Charcoal influx shows low values between 3,140 and 1,800 cal. year bp when forests were relatively dense in both high and mid‐mountain areas. Fire appeared synchronous between 1,800 and 1,700 cal. year bp for Lanzahíta and Serranillos and around 1,400–1,240 cal. year bp for the three sites, suggesting anthropogenic fire control between the Late Roman and Visigothic periods that can be related to the cultivation of olive trees in the valleys and a greater human impact in high‐mountain areas. By contrast, during the Muslim period (1,240–850 cal. year bp), fire dynamics becomes asynchronous. Later, fires turn again coeval in the Gredos range during the Christian period (850–500 cal. year bp) and can be also correlated with drought phases during the Late Medieval Warm Episode. In short, our study demonstrates that fire activity has been enormously variable during the late Holocene in response to both short‐term and long‐term regional and global climate, vegetation dynamics, and land use changes. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Mid-Holocene vegetation history and Neolithic land-use in the Lake Banyoles area (Girona, Spain)

Cited by 66 publications

References 104 publications

Humans take control of fire-driven diversity changes in Mediterranean Iberia’s vegetation during the mid–late Holocene

Humans take control of fire-driven diversity changes in Mediterranean Iberia’s vegetation during the mid–late Holocene

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Paleofire Dynamics in Central Spain during the Late Holocene: The Role of Climatic and Anthropogenic Forcing

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