Application of malacological analysis to reconstruction of regional and local environmental changes: the Cisowa Skała locality (the Carpathians, southern Poland)

Abstract

As so ci ate Ed i tor: Wojciech Granoszewski An iso lated lime stone hill (Cisowa Ska³a), lo cated in the Podhale Ba sin in south ern Po land, has yielded mol lusc shells and small ver te brate bones in de pos its fill ing small karst forms such as rock shel ters, characteristic mol lus can as sem blages can be iden ti fied, the suc ces sion of which re flects changes in the en vi ron ment and also microhabitat vari a tions de pend ing on local fac tors, such as slope ex po sure and type of veg e ta tion. These lo cal fac tors mark edly af fect re gional en vi ron men tal trends de ter mined pri mar ily by cli mate change and, dur ing the last sev eral hun dred years, also by hu man ac tiv ity. Such malacological anal y sis en ables ef fec tive palaeo geo graphi cal re con struc tions, both on the scale of geo graph ical re gions and for microhabitats. Key words: karst sed i ments, molluscs, en vi ron men tal changes, Ho lo cene, Podhale Ba sin, Pieniny Klippen Belt.