Relative pollen productivity estimates and changes in Holocene vegetation cover in the deciduous forest of southeastern Quebec, Canada

Abstract

The Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model was used to quantify Holocene changes in vegetation cover in the deciduous forest of southeastern Quebec, Canada. The Extended R-Value (ERV) model was used to obtain relative pollen productivity estimates (PPEs) for eight tree taxa and to determine the relevant source area of pollen (RSAP) for lakes in this ecosystem. Modern vegetation was estimated using pollen data from 16 small (<0.5 km2) lakes and a species-level vegetation survey of southern Quebec. The RSAP was estimated to be within 1600 m of the lakes. Tsuga, Fagus, and Quercus were the most productive taxa, and Populus and Acer were the lowest. Reconstructed changes in absolute vegetation cover show a high abundance of Picea followed by Populus in the early Holocene. The reconstructed values for Populus suggest that it was widely distributed across the landscape. Abies and Acer were dominant on the landscape during the late to mid-Holocene, and an increase in Picea during the Neoglacial is more significant than in percentage diagrams. The REVEALS results provide estimates of land-cover change that are more realistic and informative than the use of pollen percentages alone.

Human–vegetation interactions during the Holocene in North America

“…Although this is a possibility, it cannot be investigated at present. Ongoing work attempting to estimate vegetation density (Chaput and Gajewski 2018), and new data on charcoal and pollen from more sites may help resolve this question. c. We did not see the associations since our method is too insensitive, or results are highly determined by aspects of the data such as a low signal-to-noise ratio.…”

Compilation of relative pollen productivity (RPP) estimates and taxonomically harmonised RPP datasets for single continents and Northern Hemisphere extratropics

“…If the data were only presented as figures, values were extracted with the help of CorelDRAW X6. The RPP values from an unpublished study by Li et al and from the studies of Ge et al (2015), He et al (2016), Wu et al (2013), and Zhang et al (2017), which are only available in Chinese, where extracted from Li et al (2018), while the study of Chen et al (2019) was extracted from Jiang et al (2020).…”

“…Theuerkauf et al (2013) does not provide information on the maximum likelihood or the RSAP. Data from Chen et al (2019) were extracted from Jiang et al 2020but included insufficient information on the study design and the ERV approach. Data from the study of Qin et al (2020) have been rejected as they had very high values for most taxa compared to other studies, which we assume was a systematic problem of the study.…”

“…x McLauchlan et al (2011) (count data) x Bunting and Hjelle (2010) (comparison of different data collection methods) Nielsen (2004) Bunting et al (2005) Niemeyer et al (2015) Bunting et al 2013Poska et al (2011) Calcote (1995) Qin et al (2020) (from Jiang et al, 2020) Chaput and Gajewski (2018) Räsänen et al (2007) Chen et al (2019 x Sjögren et al (2006) Li et al, 2018) x Soepboer et al (2008) 2017x Sugita et al (2010) (absolute pollen values) He et al (2016) (from Li et al, 2018) Theuerkauf et al 2013x Heide and Bradshaw (1982)…”

Comparison of settlement-era vegetation reconstructions for STEPPS and REVEALS pollen–vegetation models in the northeastern United States

“…For REVEALS, we use pollen productivity estimates (PPEs) from the NEUS (Jackson and Kearsley, 1998), UMW (Bradshaw and Webb, 1985; Calcote, 1995), Quebec, Canada (Chaput and Gajewski, 2018), and Alaska, USA (Hopla, E., and Edwards, M., personal communication, 2017; Table 2). These PPEs do not include a PPE for American chestnut ( Castanea dentata ), the dominant species of chestnut in the study area, which precluded modeling of REVEALS-based chestnut abundances.…”