Vegetation history of the western Rif mountains (NW Morocco): origin, late-Holocene dynamics and human impact

Müller, Serge; Rhazi, Laïla; Andrieux, Benjamin; Bottollier-Curtet, Marion; Fauquette, Séverine; Saber, Er-Riyahi; Rifai, Nabil; Daoud-Bouattour, Amina

doi:10.1007/s00334-014-0504-9

Cited by 26 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Instead, in agreement with modern vegetation ecologists (e.g. Maugeri and Leonardi 1974;Di Benedetto et al 1984;Federici and Mangialardi 1995;Cullotta and Pasta 2004), we attribute today's open spaces to land-use practices over millennia, which created a seeming xerophytization (Muller et al 2015), by promoting garrigue, maquis and xeric grassland vegetation at the expenses of forests (Fig. 2).…”

Section: What Is Natural?mentioning

confidence: 85%

Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy)

Tinner

Vescovi

Leeuwen

et al. 2016

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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Knowledge about vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily is scanty. We analysed five sites to fill this gap and used terrestrial plant macrofossils to establish robust radiocarbon chronologies. Palynological records from Gorgo Tondo, Gorgo Lungo, Marcato Cixé, Urgo Pietra Giordano and Gorgo Pollicino show that under natural or near natural conditions, deciduous forests (Quercus pubescens, Q. cerris, Fraxinus ornus, Ulmus), that included a substantial portion of evergreen broadleaved species (Q. suber, Q. ilex, Hedera helix), prevailed in the upper meso-mediterranean belt. Mesophilous deciduous and evergreen broadleaved trees (Fagus sylvatica, Ilex aquifolium) dominated in the natural or quasi-natural forests of the oro-mediterranean belt. Forests were repeatedly opened for agricultural purposes. Fire activity was closely associated with farming, providing evidence that burning was a primary land use tool since Neolithic times. Land use and fire activity intensified during the Early Neolithic at 5000 BC, at the onset of the Bronze Age at 2500 BC and at the onset of the Iron Age at 800 BC. Our data and previous studies suggest that the large majority of open land communities in Sicily, from the coastal lowlands to the mountain areas below the thornycushion Astragalus belt (ca. 1,800 m a.s.l.), would rapidly develop into forests if land use ceased. Mesophilous Fagus-Ilex forests developed under warm mid Holocene conditions and were resilient to the combined impacts of humans and climate. The past ecology suggests a resilience of these summer-drought adapted communities to climate warming of about 2°C. Hence, they may be particularly suited to provide heat and drought-adapted Fagus sylvatica ecotypes for maintaining drought-sensitive Central European beech forests under global warming conditions.

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Section: What Is Natural?mentioning

confidence: 85%

Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy)

Tinner

Vescovi

Leeuwen

et al. 2016

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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“…This finding is crucial, for example, for the comparison of Late Quaternary Moroccan vegetation records. Previous researchers have used both techniques; most of the Moroccan vegetation studies prepared pollen samples using HF (Lamb et al 1989(Lamb et al , 1991(Lamb et al , 1999Lamb and Van der Kaars, 1995;McGregor et al, 2009;Rhoujjati et al, 2010;Amami et al, 2013;Muller et al, 2015), while several recent studies prepared samples using dense-media separation protocols (Zapata et al, 2013;Nour el Bait et al, 2014;Bell and Fletcher, 2016;Fletcher and Hughes, 2016). In a region that is the focus of an increasing amount of interest, particularly regarding Holocene environmental change, the knowledge that these records are directly comparable should facilitate the accurate evaluation of biogeographical changes across the region, including the nature and timing of environmental and vegetation shifts at a regional scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of pollen extraction methods confirms dense‐media separation as a reliable method of pollen preparation

Campbell

Fletcher

Hughes³

et al. 2016

J Quaternary Science

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10Palynology is a crucial proxy for understanding Quaternary environmental change. A 11 range of laboratory preparation techniques has been developed to deal with the 12 extraction of pollen in different sedimentary contexts. Here, we present a comparison 13 of the conventional hydrofluoric acid (HF) method and the dense-media separation 14 method using sodium polytungstate (SPT). We examine pollen, non-pollen 15 palynomorphs (NPPs) and microcharcoal by undertaking parallel preparation and 16 counting of thirty paired samples from three sites in the Middle Atlas Mountains, 17Morocco, with contrasting environmental and sedimentary conditions. Differences 18 between microfossil counts are assessed visually and statistically, using ANOVA and 19 linear regression. We observe that the typical offset between counts for the five most 20 common pollen and NPPs produced by the two methods (µ=1.6%, sd=0.9%) is 21 considerably smaller than the 95% uncertainty associated with the standard counting 22 procedure (µ=6.8%, sd=2.7%). There is no statistically significant difference 23 associated with the preparation methods, and no significant deviation from a linear 24 relationship between the results obtained by the two methods. There are advantages 25 and disadvantages to both methods in terms of preparation time and visual 26 characteristics. This study confirms that results for pollen, NPPs and microcharcoal 27 obtained by either preparation method can be directly compared. 28

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“…Los registros polínicos del Rif (Fig. 6) confirman que Cedrus ha estado presente durante el Holoceno en la mayor parte del sector occidental (Reille 1977;Muller et al 2014;Cheddadi et al 2016). Su máxima extensión se alcanzó entre 8000 y 6000 cal BP, cuando llegó a dominar en el paisaje de montaña (Cheddadi et al 2016).…”

Section: Figure 3 Quaternary Records Of Cedrus In the Iberianunclassified

Paleobiogeography of Abies spp. and Cedrus atlantica in the Western Mediterranean (Iberian Peninsula and Morocco)

Sánchez¹,

Schaad

López‐Sáez

et al. 2018

ECOS

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Vegetation history of the western Rif mountains (NW Morocco): origin, late-Holocene dynamics and human impact

Cited by 26 publications

References 45 publications

Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy)

Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy)

A comparison of pollen extraction methods confirms dense‐media separation as a reliable method of pollen preparation

Paleobiogeography of Abies spp. and Cedrus atlantica in the Western Mediterranean (Iberian Peninsula and Morocco)

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