Peatland Development, Vegetation History, Climate Change and Human Activity in the Valdai Uplands (Central European Russia) during the Holocene: A Multi-Proxy Palaeoecological Study

Abstract

Peatlands are remarkable for their specific biodiversity, crucial role in carbon cycling and climate change. Their deposits preserve organism remains that can be used to reconstruct long-term ecosystem and environmental changes as well as human impact in the prehistorical and historical past. This study presents a new multi-proxy reconstruction of the peatland and vegetation development investigating climate dynamics and human impact at the border between mixed and boreal forests in the Valdai Uplands (the East European Plain, Russia) during most of the Holocene. We performed plant macrofossil, pollen, testate amoeba, Cladocera, diatom, peat humification, loss on ignition, carbon and nitrogen content, δ13C and δ15N analyses supported by radiocarbon dating of the peat deposits from the Krivetskiy Mokh mire. The results of the study indicate that the wetland ecosystem underwent a classic hydroserial succession from a lake (8300 BC–900 BC) terrestrialized through a fen (900 BC–630 AD) to an ombrotrophic bog (630 AD–until present) and responded to climate changes documented over the Holocene. Each stage was associated with clear changes in local diversity of organisms responding mostly to autogenic successional changes during the lake stage and to allogenic factors at the fen-bog stage. The latter can be related to increased human impact and greater sensitivity of peatland ecosystems to external, especially climatic, drivers as compared to lakes.

Natural and anthropogenic factors affecting intense slope processes in Eastern Europe during the Modern Period: Serteyka river valley, Russia

“…This led to the fact that more water was getting to the valley floor, which resulted in a further increase in flooding, its strength -this was recorded in overbank alluvial deposits in the distal zone of the studied fan. Increase in non-tree pollen since 1350 AD in the Valdai Highlands suggests the expansion of cultivated areas (Mazei et al, 2020), which is consistent with the results for the Serteya region. It is worth noting that in the mid-14 th century this area became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Шабульдо, 1987).…”

“…This involves the expansion of more open landscapes and waterlogged habitats. Precipitation then amounted to 750-800 mm year (Mazei et al, 2020).…”

“…Reconstructed average July temperature for the period 640-1300 AD in one of the peat bogs in the Valdai Upland (central European Russia), based on Cladocera, testate amoeba and diatom analysis, it was 16.9-17.6°C, which is 0.7-1.4°C lower than today (Mazei et al, 2020). In Eastern Europe, the 10 th century was the warmest century in the last 2000 years (Klimenko and Sleptsov, 2003;Klimenko and Solomina, 2010).…”

Forest fires in southwest Western Siberia: the impact of climate and economic transitions over 9000 years

“…1). For the European part of the country, published results are available for the eastern part of the Russian Plain (Gorbach et al, 2021; Barhoumi et al, 2019), the north of the Valdai Upland (Mazei et al, 2020), the Meshchera Lowland (Kupriyanov and Novenko, 2019), the basin of the middle Oka (Kupriyanov et al, 2022) and the southern part of the Mordovia Nature Reserve (Kupriyanov and Novenko, 2021; Novenko et al, 2016).…”

“…Peatbog in the vicinity of Koygorodsky National Park (Gorbach et al, 2021); 5. Krivetskiy Mokh mire (Mazei et al, 2020); 6. Klyukva mire (Kupriyanov et al, 2022); 7.…”