Land biotas of the last interglacial/glacial cycle on Jameson Land, East Greenland

Abstract

Macrofossil plant and insect remains from nearshore marine sediments in Jameson Land, central East Greenland show that the land biotas of the last interglacial stage, the Langelandselv stage, were more diverse than those of the Holocene. Rich dwarf shrub heaths with a diverse assemblage of ericaceous plants occupied low land areas with copses of Betula pubescens on sheltered sites. Many southern extra‐limital species were present, and the mean summer temperature was c. 5°C higher than today. The subarctic bioclimatic zone was displaced from southernmost Greenland/Iceland to central East Greenland. The diverse beetle fauna was of palaearctic affinity and strikingly different from the Plio‐Pleistocene and the Holocene Greenlandic beetle faunas. A few fossil assemblages from the Hugin Sø Interstade, which is correlated with oxygen isotope stage 5c (early last glacial stage), point to poor, perhaps entirely herbaceous vegetation with a mean summer temperature that was perhaps 3 4°C lower than today.

A greener Greenland? Climatic potential and long-term constraints on future expansions of trees and shrubs

“…Still, the vegetation was dominated by Alnus , and perhaps Betula (cf. [30]), while conifers appear to have been absent throughout this approx. 10 000 year period [28], despite the existence of a climate that must have been suitable for many conifer species.…”

“…viridis ssp. crispa and B. pubescens [30] reached as far north as Jameson Land in central eastern Greenland [30], while vegetation in southern Greenland was dominated by Alnus and the temperate fern Osmunda . However, boreal conifers such as Picea were not present or at least not common [28].…”

Are environmental factors responsible for geographic variation in the sex ratio of the Greenlandic seed‐bugNysius groenlandicus?

“…Evolutionarily, it is advantageous not to waste time and energy on mating behaviour and on the production of males; parthenogenetic organisms thus have a higher reproductive potential than their sexual ancestors (Glesener & Tilman, 1978). Moreover, a single individual in any developmental stage can be the founder of a new population – an ability of high importance in the Arctic during the incessant Pleistocene glaciations and deglaciations involving, in a geological context, frequent extinctions and new colonizations during interglacials (Bennike & Böcher, 1994; Böcher, 1997; Böcher & Bennike, 1996).…”

A multiproxy macrofossil record of Eemian palaeoenvironments from Klaksvík, the Faroe Islands

“…Betula was represented by both nutlets and female catkin scales, but the nutlets lacked the wings and the catkin scales were also poorly preserved; hence it was not possible to identify these remains to species. However, the wingless Betula nutlets are oblong in shape and do not come from Betula nana , which has roundish nutlets (Bennike & Böcher ). Also the catkin scales are thin, not thick as in B. nana .…”