Vegetation change in equatorial West Africa: time-slices for the last 150 ka

Dupont, Lydie M; Jahns, Susanne; Marret, Fabienne; Shi, Ning

doi:10.1016/s0031-0182(99)00095-4

Cited by 239 publications

(219 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…2 and 5). This pattern agrees with reconstructions by Ray and Adams (2001) and Dupont et al (2000), who found a reduction in tropical forest in western and central Africa during the LGM period. Our model also agrees with pollen data from BIOME 6000 which show tropical forest on the west coast of Africa and grasslands in southern and northern Africa.…”

Section: Last Glacial Maximum Simulation (Lgm)supporting

confidence: 92%

Tropical climate and vegetation changes during Heinrich Event 1: a model-data comparison

2012

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Abstract. Abrupt climate changes from 18 to 15 thousand years before present (kyr BP) associated with Heinrich Event 1 (HE1) had a strong impact on vegetation patterns not only at high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, but also in the tropical regions around the Atlantic Ocean. To gain a better understanding of the linkage between high and low latitudes, we used the University of Victoria (UVic) Earth System-Climate Model (ESCM) with dynamical vegetation and land surface components to simulate four scenarios of climate-vegetation interaction: the pre-industrial era, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and a Heinrich-like event with two different climate backgrounds (interglacial and glacial). We calculated mega-biomes from the plantfunctional types (PFTs) generated by the model to allow for a direct comparison between model results and palynological vegetation reconstructions.Our calculated mega-biomes for the pre-industrial period and the LGM corresponded well with biome reconstructions of the modern and LGM time slices, respectively, except that our pre-industrial simulation predicted the dominance of grassland in southern Europe and our LGM simulation resulted in more forest cover in tropical and sub-tropical South America.The HE1-like simulation with a glacial climate background produced sea-surface temperature patterns and enhanced inter-hemispheric thermal gradients in accordance with the "bipolar seesaw" hypothesis. We found that the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere caused a southward shift of those PFTs that are indicative of an increased desertification and a retreat of broadleaf forests in West Africa and northern South America. The mega-biomes from our HE1 simulation agreed well with paleovegetation data from tropical Africa and northern South America. Thus, according to our model-data comparison, the reconstructed vegetation changes for the tropical regions around the Atlantic Ocean were physically consistent with the remote effects of a Heinrich event under a glacial climate background.

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Section: Last Glacial Maximum Simulation (Lgm)supporting

confidence: 92%

Tropical climate and vegetation changes during Heinrich Event 1: a model-data comparison

2012

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“…Literature on the economic importance of West African wetlands, and how the benefits and costs resulting from their use are distributed is however weak. Results from this study of the Niger Delta wetlands, Africa's largest river delta and mangrove ecosystem (Dupont et al 2000) emphasise the economic importance and livelihood contribution of the wetlands as well as the potential disparity in the distribution of environmental costs and benefits among stakeholders.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…According to Short and Staeuble (1967) beyond into the Gulf of Guinea, resulted in the formation of this complex and fragile delta with a rich biodiversity (Abam 2001). The Niger Delta is regarded as the third largest wetland in the world (Uluocha and Okeke 2004;Umoh 2008), and the largest river delta and mangrove ecosystem with the greatest extension of freshwater swamps in Africa (Ajonina et al 2008;Dupont et al 2000;Ogon 2006). …”

Section: Geography and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality and ecosystem services: The value and social distribution of Niger Delta wetland services

2015

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The Niger Delta wetlands are of international importance for their biodiversity, and support a large human population. The value and distribution of wetland ecosystem service benefits and costs across the three main stakeholder sectors (local community, government and corporate) were investigated. Results show that the net monetary value of the wetlands is $11,000 per delta household of which $9,000 was generated as cash income supporting household activities such as education and healthcare. The total annual value of provisioning services to local people is approximately $25 billion, about three times the value of oil production in the region. However, local communities also bear about 75% of the environmental costs of oil extraction, equivalent to about 19% of the oil industry profit. Local people, who experience considerable economic hardship and lack alternative income sources, receive little compensation from the oil sector. These results highlight the importance of understanding not only the benefits provided by Niger Delta wetlands, but also the distribution of the environmental costs associated with their use. We conclude that ecosystem service valuation studies should give greater attention to the social distribution of identified values. Such distributional analyses, rarely available, provide insight into how sustainable natural resource management policy and practice could be better aligned to social justice concerns.

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“…During the Late Pleistocene, dry phases repeatedly reduced considerably the size of the tropical forest around the globe, around 60 kya, 40 kya, 25-11 kya (Dupont et al 2000, Maley 2004, Sémah & RenaultMiskovsky 2004, Sultan et al 2001, Van der Hammen & Hooghiemstra 2000. During the Last Glacial Maximum in Central Africa, for example, the rainforest at ~20 kya had almost disappeared except for a few crucial refugia that are still biodiversity hotspots, from where rainforest species expanded once climatic conditions improved and stabilized during the Holocene.…”

Section: Rainforests Biodiversity Long-time Depths and The Impact Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Bananas Matter: An introduction to the history of banana domestication

Langhe

Vrydaghs²,

Maret

et al. 2009

Ethnobot. Res. App.

176

116

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Vegetation change in equatorial West Africa: time-slices for the last 150 ka

Cited by 239 publications

References 36 publications

Tropical climate and vegetation changes during Heinrich Event 1: a model-data comparison

Tropical climate and vegetation changes during Heinrich Event 1: a model-data comparison

Inequality and ecosystem services: The value and social distribution of Niger Delta wetland services

Why Bananas Matter: An introduction to the history of banana domestication

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