Pollen diversity captures landscape structure and diversity

Matthias, Isabelle; Semmler, Malte Sebastian Swen; Giesecke, Thomas

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.12404

Cited by 90 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…A series of earlier studies have found similar positive correlations between pollen and plant richness in Europe (Birks, ; Felde et al, ; Matthias et al, ; Meltsov et al, ; Odgaard, ). However, investigations from the tropics (Gosling et al, ; Jantz, Homeier, & Behling, ) or from temperate western North America (Goring et al, ) have not found such positive correlations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

“…Andersen, ) or pollen productivity estimates (e.g. Broström et al, ) to downweight the high pollen producers prior to rarefaction analysis is one option that has been used by several authors (Felde et al, ; Matthias et al, ). In our analysis, we test the use of Andersen‐transformed pollen richness and although it improves the pollen–plant richness correlation ( r = 0.63, p < 0.001) it does not completely remove the interaction effects of the richness relationship with climate and latitude.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These samples were collected and prepared in the laboratory using harmonised methodology (Seppä, Birks, Odland, Poska, & Veski, ) but counted by a number of different pollen analysts. Geographically, the dataset covers Scandinavia (including Svalbard), Finland, the Baltic countries, the western and northwestern parts of Russia (Salonen et al, ) and northern Germany (Matthias et al, ) (Figure ), ranging through temperate, boreal and tundra biomes. In total, the dataset includes 633 pollen lake‐surface samples.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The modern pollen dataset of lake-surface samples was compiled from Salonen, Seppä, Luoto, Bjune, and Birks (2012) and Matthias et al (2015) and comes from small-to medium-sized lakes (median lake size 9 ha). These samples were collected and prepared in the laboratory using harmonised methodology (Seppä, Birks, Odland, Poska, & Veski, 2004) but counted by a number of different pollen analysts.…”

Section: Pollen Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are several studies that have investigated modern pollen-plant diversity relationships (e.g. Felde, Peglar, Bjune, Grytnes, & Birks, 2016;Matthias, Semmler, & Giesecke, 2015;Meltsov, Poska, Odgaard, Sammul, & Kull, 2011;Meltsov, Poska, Reitalu, Sammul, & Kull, 2013) and the results usually show a positive relationship between modern pollen and plant diversity estimates (but see Goring, Lacourse, Pellatt, & Mathewes, 2013;Gosling et al, 2018). Most of these modernday pollen-plant studies are done at relatively local scales where climate variation is small and the diversity relationships mainly depend on landscape factors (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Patterns of modern pollen and plant richness across northern Europe

et al. 2019

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Sedimentary pollen offers excellent opportunities to reconstruct vegetation changes over past millennia. Number of different pollen taxa or pollen richness is used to characterise past plant richness. To improve the interpretation of sedimentary pollen richness, it is essential to understand the relationship between pollen and plant richness in contemporary landscapes. This study presents a regional‐scale comparison of pollen and plant richness from northern Europe and evaluates the importance of environmental variables on pollen and plant richness. We use a pollen dataset of 511 lake‐surface pollen samples ranging through temperate, boreal and tundra biomes. To characterise plant diversity, we use a dataset formulated from the two largest plant atlases available in Europe. We compare pollen and plant richness estimates in different groups of taxa (wind‐pollinated vs. non‐wind‐pollinated, trees and shrubs vs. herbs and grasses) and test their relationships with climate and landscape variables. Pollen richness is significantly positively correlated with plant richness (r = 0.53). The pollen plant richness correlation improves (r = 0.63) when high pollen producers are downweighted prior to estimating richness minimising the influence of pollen production on the pollen richness estimate. This suggests that methods accommodating pollen‐production differences in richness estimates deserve further attention and should become more widely used in Quaternary pollen diversity studies. The highest correlations are found between pollen and plant richness of trees and shrubs (r = 0.83) and of wind‐pollinated taxa (r = 0.75) suggesting that these are the best measures of broad‐scale plant richness over several thousands of square kilometres. Mean annual temperature is the strongest predictor of both pollen and plant richness. Landscape openness is positively associated with pollen richness but not with plant richness. Pollen richness values from extremely open and/or cold areas where pollen production is low should be interpreted with caution because low local pollen production increases the proportion of extra‐regional pollen. Synthesis. Our results confirm that pollen data can provide insights into past plant richness changes in northern Europe, and with careful consideration of pollen‐production differences and spatial scale represented, pollen data make it possible to investigate vegetation diversity trends over long time‐scales and under changing climatic and habitat conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pollen Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Patterns of modern pollen and plant richness across northern Europe

et al. 2019

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High dissimilarity within a multiyear annual record of pollen assemblages from a North American tallgrass prairie

Commerford

McLauchlan

Minckley

2016

Ecology and Evolution

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Grassland vegetation varies in composition across North America and has been historically influenced by multiple biotic and abiotic drivers, including fire, herbivory, and topography. Yet, the amount of temporal and spatial variability exhibited among grassland pollen assemblages, and the influence of these biotic and abiotic drivers on pollen assemblage composition and diversity has been relatively understudied. Here, we examine 4 years of modern pollen assemblages collected from a series of 28 traps at the Konza Prairie Long‐Term Ecological Research Area in the Flint Hills of Kansas, with the aim of evaluating the influence of these drivers, as well as quantifying the amount of spatial and temporal variability in the pollen signatures of the tallgrass prairie biome. We include all terrestrial pollen taxa in our analyses while calculating four summative metrics of pollen diversity and composition – beta‐diversity, Shannon index, nonarboreal pollen percentage, and Ambrosia:Artemisia – and find different roles of fire, herbivory, and topography variables in relation to these pollen metrics. In addition, we find significant annual differences in the means of three of these metrics, particularly the year 2013 which experienced high precipitation relative to the other 3 years of data. To quantify spatial and temporal dissimilarity among the samples over the 4‐year study, we calculate pairwise squared‐chord distances (SCD). The SCD values indicate higher compositional dissimilarity across the traps (0.38 mean) among all years than within a single trap from year to year (0.31 mean), suggesting that grassland vegetation can have different pollen signatures across finely sampled space and time, and emphasizing the need for additional long‐term annual monitoring of grassland pollen.

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Vegetation responses to past volcanic disturbances at the Araucaria araucana forest‐steppe ecotone in northern Patagonia

Moreno‐González

2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Volcanic eruptions play an important role in vegetation dynamics and its historical range of variability. However, large events are infrequent and eruptions with a significant imprint in today's vegetation occurred far in the past, limiting our understanding of ecological processes. Volcanoes in southern Andes have been active during the last 10 ka and support unique ecosystems such as the Araucaria – Nothofagus forest. Araucaria is an endangered species, with a fragmented distribution and well‐adapted to fire and volcanic disturbances. Yet, it was suggested that volcanism might have increased the fragmentation. Through the use of pollen and tephra analysis from a sedimentary record, this paleoecological study aims to provide an insight into the vegetation responses to past volcanic disturbances, to assess the role of volcanic disturbance on the vegetation dynamics and to determine if the current fragmentation has been caused by volcanism. Results show that during the last 9 kyr, 39 tephra falls buried the vegetation around Lake Relem, more frequently between 4 and 2 ka. The pollen percentage indicates that the vegetation changed after small tephra fall but seldom caused significant changes. However, the large eruption of Sollipulli volcano (~3 ka) changed the environmental conditions affecting severely the vegetation. Ephedra dominated the early successional stage, perhaps facilitating Nothofagus recovering after ~500 years. Slight increase of Araucaria and Nothofagus obliqua ‐type pollen percentages suggests that forest resisted without permanent changes and recovered relatively fast after the large eruption, perhaps because of sparse biological legacies distributed in the landscape. In the study area, the relative stability of Araucaria pollen after several tephra fall suggests no change in its past distribution at the current forest‐steppe ecotone, thus not affecting its current conservation status. Perhaps, random factors, the colonization patterns of the high elevations in the Andes after deglaciation and topography might play a more important role than previously thought.

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Pollen diversity captures landscape structure and diversity

Cited by 90 publications

References 50 publications

Patterns of modern pollen and plant richness across northern Europe

Patterns of modern pollen and plant richness across northern Europe

High dissimilarity within a multiyear annual record of pollen assemblages from a North American tallgrass prairie

Vegetation responses to past volcanic disturbances at the Araucaria araucana forest‐steppe ecotone in northern Patagonia

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