Peatlands store massive amounts of organic carbon, but the fate of this carbon remains unclear as global climate continues to warm. The age of peatland inception and the main drivers of peat initiation are one of the most important issues in Holocene paleoecology, especially for the numerous but under investigated peatlands in European Russia. This paper introduces new peatland initiation ages for 44 mires in three areas located in the central part of European Russia within the Polesie landscape belt. This region is characterised by waterlogged sandy plains and flat surface topography. Phases of peatland initiation were compared with Holocene fire regime derived from macro-charcoal data as well as with regional climatic reconstructions. We found that peat inception in the region started around 12,000 cal yr BP, but the most active phases of peatland initiation took place during the periods 8500–7500, 7000–6000, 5300–5800, 4000–3500 and 1700–1200 cal yr BP. Expect for rapid peat growth during the early Holocene, peatland initiation mostly coincided with warm climatic periods and increased fire frequency. Forest soil paludification in poorly drained Polesie landscapes was presumably enhanced by reduced evapotranspiration and changes in water balance due to disturbance of forest cover after wildfires. We expect that rising air temperature in the current century will cause higher fire frequencies and may encourage waterlogging of forests and ecosystem transformation.

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Abstract. The paper presents the results of studies of 270 modern pollen assemblages from different vegetation zones of the East European plain. According to obtained data the ratio of the main components in pollen assemblages from forest and forest-steppe localities is characterized by higher proportion of the regional components (e.g., Betula, Alnus, Pinus) and significantly lower participation of Picea pollen and one of deciduous trees then the proportions of these species in the surrounding vegetation. Steppe vegetation is determined by higher share of non-arboreal pollen and specific floristic composition. The comparison between geographical range of tree species and maps showing distribution of their pollen show a possibility a long distance transfer of Carpinus and Fagus pollen while pollen of Quercus and Tilia occurred close to their modern geographical ranges.

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