Postglacial history of East European boreal forests in the mid‐Kama region, pre‐Urals, Russia

Abstract

The Ural Mountains are an important climatic and biogeographical barrier between European and Siberian forests. In order to shed light on the postglacial formation and evolution of the boreal forests in the European pre‐Urals, we obtained a peat sediment core, Chernaya, from the Paltinskoe bog located between the southern taiga and hemiboreal forest zone in the mid‐Kama region. We carried out pollen analysis, non‐pollen palynomorph analysis, loss‐on‐ignition tests and radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dated records provide centennial to decennial resolution of the vegetation and environmental history of the European pre‐Urals for the last 8.8 ka. The postglacial formation of the pre‐Uralian hemiboreal forests reveals four important phases: (i) the dominance of Siberian taiga and forest‐steppe in the Early Holocene and beginning of the Middle Holocene (8.8–6.9 ka), indicating a dry climate; (ii) the spread of spruce and European broadleaved trees in the Middle Holocene (6.9–4 ka) under wetter climate conditions; (iii) the maximum extent of broadleaved trees coinciding with the arrival and spread of Siberian fir in the Late Holocene (4–2.3 ka); and (iv) the decline of broadleaved trees since the Early Iron Age (2.3 ka – present) possibly due to general climate cooling and logging. While temperate broadleaved trees possibly spread from local refugia in the Urals, fir arrived from Siberia and spread further west. The carbon accumulation rate of Paltinskoe bog (18.9±10.16 g C m−2 a−1) is close to the average value of carbon accumulation of northern peatlands. Local development of peat is characterized by non‐gradual growth with a phase of intensive carbon accumulation between 3.5 and 2.3 ka. The vegetation was strongly influenced by fire in the Early Holocene and by humans since the Early Iron Age practicing deforestation, agriculture and pasture. Phases of increased anthropogenic activity correlate well with the local archaeological data.

Long-term ecology and conservation of the Kungur forest-steppe (pre-Urals, Russia): case study Spasskaya Gora

“…In contrast to the suggested mid-Holocene migration wave (Ponomarev 1948;Fig. 6), the well-dated records from Upper (Zaretskaya et al 2020) and Middle Kama (Shumilovskikh et al 2020a) do not show any long-term dry phases that could cause a northward spread of the steppe vegetation. Nevertheless, both datasets reveal a maximum of broadleaved deciduous trees between 4700 and 3400 years BP in the Upper and 4000 and 2300 years BP in the Middle Kama regions, indicating rather warm climate conditions.…”

“…Although the most herbaceous plants have low pollen productivity and dispersal capability, NAP values in recent surface samples from forests vary between 11 and 35% and meadows between 40 and 77% in Spasskaya Gora (Shumilovskikh et al 2020b), indicating high load of herbs pollen in modern open forests. In comparison, the pollen record Chernaya from a peat bog Paltinskoe located in a hemiboreal forest around 100 km NW of Spasskaya Gora shows that NAP values vary between 1 and 27% during the late Holocene (Shumilovskikh et al 2020a). Pollen records from the East European forest -steppe (Shumilovskikh et al 2018;Feurdean et al 2021) show variation of AP values between 10 and 75% since the Middle Holocene, indicating that Spasskaya Gora was covered by forests rather than typical forest-steppe.…”

“…6). Few existing radiocarbon-dated records from the Perm region cover the period over the last ~ 11,000 years (Elovicheva 1991;Demakov et al 2016;Lapteva et al 2017;Zaretskaya et al 2020;Shumilovskikh et al 2020a). The data suggest the presence of the open pine-birch-spruce forests during the early Holocene until ~ 8000 years BP.…”

“…6). Record from Paltinskoe peat bog (Shumilovskikh et al 2020a) demonstrates the spread of spruce and a gradual arrival and spread of alder at ~ 7500 years BP, elm at ~ 7200 years BP, and hazel, oak and lime after ~ 6800 years BP. Broadleaved trees probably migrated from local refugia in the Urals.…”

Network of Protected Natural Areas in the Perm Region

“…Уточнения требуют, прежде всего, западные, южные и восточные, границы Кунгурской лесостепи. Особенно важно установить во времени их изменения, которые предположительно носят транзитивный, циклический характер из-за климатических колебаний и деятельности человека [29]. В приложение к Красной книге заносятся естественно редкие, а также малоизученные виды, для которых велика вероятность попадания в основной список Красной книги (табл.…”