Reconstruction of Past Environment and Climate Using Wetland Sediment Records from the Sierra Nevada

Laguna Seca sediments reveal environmental and climate change during the latest Pleistocene and Holocene in Sierra Nevada, southern Iberian Peninsula

“…(For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) 2012; Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2022). In Sierra Nevada, the most frequent high-altitude forest species are pines such as P. sylvestris and P. nigra.…”

“…Olea, Pinus and Quercus (and thus PCI) increased in the last centuries (Figs. 3 and 5) indicating anthropogenic activities such as olive cultivation at lower altitudes, especially intensive in the last millennium (Ramos-Román et al, 2019), and reforestation with pines and oaks in the last century (see synthesis in Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2022). A greater soil erosion and contribution of allochthonous detrital materials is observed in the last centuries, interpreted from the increase in Glomus endomycorrhizal fungus in the LS sediment samples (Fig.…”

“…Sierra Nevada and the southern Iberian Peninsula that show a progressive forest decrease and an increase in xerophytes, pointing to a climate aridification and cooling that began around 7.0 kyr and intensified after ~6.0-5.0 kyr (Carrión, 2002;Fletcher et al, 2010;Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2015;Ramos-Román et al, 2018a;Mesa-Fernández et al, 2018;Gomes et al, 2020;Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2022). Cooling in the MH is also shown by SST records from the Alboran Sea (Rodrigo-Gámiz et al, 2014;Català et al, 2019) and can be explained by the decline in summer insolation (Cacho et al, 2002;Renssen et al, 2003) (Fig.…”

“…In this respect, there are more than 50 small glacial-origin alpine lakes and bogs in the Sierra Nevada that accumulated sediments preserving a high-quality signal of past natural and anthropogenic environmental and climate change (Anderson et al, 2011;Jiménez-Moreno and Anderson, 2012;García-Alix et al, 2012Jiménez-Espejo et al, 2014;Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2013Ramos-Román et al, 2016, 2018a, 2018bMesa-Fernández et al, 2018;Manzano et al, 2019;Toney et al, 2020;López-Avilés et al, 2021;Alba-Sánchez et al, 2021). Previous studies show that in the glacial lakes and wetlands from the Sierra Nevada sedimentation started after deglaciation and thereafter since the Early Holocene (see synthesis in Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2022). Therefore, older sedimentary records were yet to be found in this alpine area to widen our knowledge about environmental change further in time and since the last deglaciation.…”

Climatic Fluctuations Over the Holocene in Southern Iberia (Sierra Nevada, Spain) Reconstructed by Fossil Cladocerans

“…However, of particular interest are remote and high-elevation lakes in southern mountainous areas of Iberia since they have shown an exceptional sensibility to anthropogenic warming, as revealed by changes in this crustacean assemblage in response to rising air temperatures and intensification of atmospheric deposition of Saharan dust during the last 180 years (Jiménez et al, 2019(Jiménez et al, , 2018. These lacustrine ecosystems have been subjected to a large number of paleoecological investigations using biological and geochemical proxies that revealed several climatic oscillations and anthropogenic impacts since the last 11,700 cal yr BP (see review in Jiménez-Moreno et al, 2022). However, the biotic response of cladocerans to these environmental changes recorded throughout the Holocene remains unknown.…”