Postglacial vegetational changes along an elevational gradient in the Adirondack Mountains (New York) : a study of plant macrofossils

Jackson, Stephen T.

doi:10.5962/bhl.title.135549

Cited by 35 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…It is marked at individual sites by several centuries of high Tsuga pollen percentages, followed by a steep decline to low or trace levels that persist for at least two millennia (Davis 1981). Plant macrofossil sequences show similar patterns (Anderson et al 1986, Jackson 1989, Spear et al 1994, Reeves 2006, confirming that the Tsuga decline represents a reduction in population size rather than pollen productivity. The decline at individual sites appears to have occurred in less than a century, possibly less than a decade (Allison et al 1986).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Did those wet periods comprise a seasonal moisture regime unsuitable for Tsuga, unlike that during the predecline period (Shuman et al 2009b)? Tsuga populations declined or disappeared across a broad elevational gradient in the Adirondack and White Mountains, including sites up to 200 m above its current elevational limits (Jackson 1989, Jackson and Whitehead 1991, Spear et al 1994. Other low-elevation species (Pinus strobus, Betula alleghaniensis) persisted above their modern limits until as recently as 3000-2000 yr BP.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Decomposing the mid‐Holocene Tsuga decline in eastern North America

Booth

Brewer

Blaauw

et al. 2012

Ecology

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Abstract. The mid-Holocene decline of Tsuga canadensis (hereafter Tsuga) populations across eastern North America is widely perceived as a synchronous event, driven by pests/ pathogens, rapid climate change, or both. Pattern identification and causal attribution are hampered by low stratigraphic density of pollen-sampling and radiometric dates at most sites, and by absence of highly resolved, paired pollen and paleoclimate records from single sediment cores, where chronological order of climatic and vegetational changes can be assessed. We present an intensely sampled (contiguous 1-cm intervals) record of pollen and water table depth (inferred from testate amoebae) from a single core spanning the Tsuga decline at Irwin Smith Bog in Lower Michigan, with high-precision chronology. We also present an intensively sampled pollen record from Tower Lake in Upper Michigan. Both sites show high-magnitude fluctuations in Tsuga pollen percentages during the pre-decline maximum. The terminal decline is dated at both sites ca. 5000 cal yr BP, some 400 years later than estimates from other sites and data compilations. The terminal Tsuga decline was evidently heterochronous across its range. A transient decline ca. 5350 cal yr BP at both sites may correspond to the terminal decline at other sites in eastern North America. At Irwin Smith Bog, the terminal Tsuga decline preceded an abrupt and persistent decline in water table depths by ;200 years, suggesting the decline was not directly driven by abrupt climate change. The Tsuga decline may best be viewed as comprising at least three phases: a long-duration predecline maximum with high-magnitude and high-frequency fluctuations, followed by a terminal decline at individual sites, followed in turn by two millennia of persistently low Tsuga populations. These phases may not be causally linked, and may represent dynamics taking place at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Further progress toward understanding the phenomenon requires an expanded network of high-resolution pollen and paleoclimate chronologies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

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confidence: 99%

Decomposing the mid‐Holocene Tsuga decline in eastern North America

Booth

Brewer

Blaauw

et al. 2012

Ecology

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“…Tree rings (maximum latewood density), isotopic analyses from speleothems, and lake sediments, for example, all largely reflect summer processes (Hu et al, 2001). However, regional cooling is also evidenced by changes in forest composition, including increases in boreal forest components, such as spruce (Picea) and fir (Abies) (Davis, 1980;Jackson, 1989;Shuman et al, 2004;Oswald et al, 2007), and the pollen-based mean annual temperature reconstruction from Williams et al (2011) reflects this (Fig. 5h).…”

Section: Reconstructed Temperature Variations In the Ne Usmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Their usage predates pollen (Reid, 1899), and most add a species-specific component that is thus more precise than pollen (pollen is primarily identified to genus or family) for indications of temperature and precipitation. Conifer needles have been utilized to identify late-Holocene timing of specific treeline migration into both alpine (Jackson, 1989) and subarctic (Peteet, 1986) environments with paleoclimatic inferences. Additionally, aquatic macrofossils are often key indicators of lake level and can help to define both the hydroclimate and nutrient status as well as pH (Birks, 2002).…”

Section: Fossil Pollenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Many ecosystem processes that influence Earth system feedbacks -vegetation growth, water and nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes -are strongly influenced by multidecadal-to millennial-scale climate variations that cannot be directly observed. Paleoclimate records provide information about these variations, forming the basis of our understanding and modeling of them. Fossil pollen records are abundant in the NE US, but cannot simultaneously provide information about paleoclimate and past vegetation in a modeling context because this leads to circular logic. If pollen data are used to constrain past vegetation changes, then the remaining paleoclimate archives in the northeastern US (NE US) are quite limited. Nonetheless, a growing number of diverse reconstructions have been developed but have not yet been examined together. Here we conduct a systematic review, assessment, and comparison of paleotemperature and paleohydrological proxies from the NE US for the last 3000 years. Regional temperature reconstructions (primarily summer) show a long-term cooling trend (1000 BCE-1700 CE) consistent with hemispheric-scale reconstructions, while hydroclimate data show gradually wetter conditions through the present day. Multiple proxies suggest that a prolonged, widespread drought occurred between 550 and 750 CE. Dry conditions are also evident during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which was warmer and drier than the Little Ice Age and drier than today. There is some evidence for an acceleration of the longer-term wetting trend in the NE US during the past century; coupled with an abrupt shift from decreasing to increasing temperatures in the past century, these changes could have wide-ranging implications for species distributions, ecosystem dynamics, and extreme weather events. More work is needed to gather paleoclimate data in the NE US to make inter-proxy comparisons and to improve estimates of uncertainty in reconstructions.

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“…On the basis of macrofossils of spruce, balsam fir, and birch, Spear (1989) postulated early Holocene upward movement of treeline, ending some time before 6000 yBP. Macrofossil evidence from the Adirondack Mountains (Jackson, 1989;Whitehead and Jackson, 1990) and the White Mountains (Spear et al, 1994) shows raised elevational limits for white pine (300 m), hemlock (300 m, Adirondacks; 200 m, White Mountains), and yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britt.) (150 m, Adirondacks), which is interpreted as an increase in temperature of 1°C or more from about 9000 to at least 4000 yBP.…”

Section: Conclusion and Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Late-Quaternary history of the alpine flora of the New Hampshire White Mountains

Miller¹,

Spear²

2002

gpq

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A distinctive flora of 73 species of vascular plants and numerous bryophytes occurs in the ca. 20 km 2 of alpine tundra in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. The late- Quaternary distribution of these plants, many of which are disjuncts, was investigated by studies of pollen and plant macrofossils from lower Lakes of the Clouds (1 542 m) in the alpine zone of Mount Washington. Results were compared with pollen and macrofossils from lowland late-glacial deposits in western New England. Lowland paleofloras contained fossils of 43 species of vascular plants, 13 of which occur in the contemporary alpine flora of the White Mountains. A majority of species in the paleoflora has geographic affinities to Labrador, northern Québec, and Greenland, a pattern also apparent for mosses in the lowland deposits. The first macrofossils in lower Lakes of the Clouds were arctic-alpine mosses of acid soils. Although open-ground mosses and vascular plants continued to occur throughout the Holocene, indicating that alpine tundra persisted, fossils of a low-elevation moss Hylocomiastrum umbratum are evidence that forest (perhaps as krummholz) covered a greater area near the basin from 7 500 to 3 500 yBP. No calcicolous plants were recovered from sediments at lower Lakes of the Clouds. Climatic constraints on the alpine flora during the Younger Dryas oscillation and perhaps during other cold-climate events and intervening periods of higher temperature may have led to the loss of plant species in the White Mountain alpine zone. Late-glacial floras of lowland western New England were much richer than floras of areas above treeline during late-glacial time and at the present.

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Postglacial vegetational changes along an elevational gradient in the Adirondack Mountains (New York) : a study of plant macrofossils

Cited by 35 publications

References 53 publications

Decomposing the mid‐Holocene Tsuga decline in eastern North America

Decomposing the mid‐Holocene Tsuga decline in eastern North America

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

Late-Quaternary history of the alpine flora of the New Hampshire White Mountains

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