The absence of disturbances promoted Late Holocene expansion of silver fir (Abies alba) in the Bohemian Forest

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985939%3A_____%2F24%3A00582384" target="_blank" >RIV/67985939:_____/24:00582384 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/00216208:11310/24:10486055 RIV/60460709:41320/24:101458 RIV/00216224:14310/24:00138438

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2023.111950" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2023.111950</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2023.111950" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.palaeo.2023.111950</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The absence of disturbances promoted Late Holocene expansion of silver fir (Abies alba) in the Bohemian Forest

Original language description

Temperate forests in the Northern Hemisphere are strongly affected by increasing annual temperatures and natural disturbances such as droughts, fires, and pest outbreaks. In many regions, alternatives are explored by the forestry industry for previously commercialized tree species which are rapidly declining in areas outside their optimal climatic niches. However, as the current ranges of tree species have been mainly constrained by human activity, their true climatic and ecological niches are likely different from our observations. For example, little is known about environmental niches and population dynamics of tree species with limited dispersal ability, such as silver fir (Abies alba). Long-term (paleo) records of past landscape composition, past climate, and past disturbances can help to reveal the natural environmental niches of tree species. This study focuses on the Bohemian Forest (Sumava) in Czechia, where the human alteration of forests in higher elevations (>1000 m asl) has only been demonstrated from Medieval times onward. We present an interdisciplinary approach of geochemistry, pollen, charcoal, botanical and insect macro remains from a high-elevation peat record for the last seven millennia. Our multi-proxy study aimed to identify episodes of increased fire and other disturbances such as insect outbreaks, which could have influenced forest dynamics and vegetation succession in this montane region. However, the charcoal and macro-fossil records do not indicate any large local fires, insect outbreaks, browsing, or other disturbances (e.g., anthropogenic) for a major part of the record, suggesting that changes in the vegetation after 6500 cal yr BP were mainly caused by climatic fluctuations. Silver fir (Abies alba) expanded from 4300 cal yr BP, and likely became the dominant tree species at this locality for the next 2000 years, with extremely high pollen values up to 60%. During the establishment of silver fir around the peat bog around 5600 cal yr BP and its expansion around 4300 cal yr BP, the geochemical record and low counts of the testate amoeba Archerella flavum indicate drier conditions on the peat bog. Comparison with climatic simulations on a 1 x 1-km scale from the CHELSA database suggests that the local expansion of silver fir possibly coincided with a decrease in precipitation during both the wettest and warmest quarter of the year, related to a decreasing trend in seasonality of annual precipitation, this might confirm the species' higher tolerance to drought. Although silver fir is currently extremely rare in the Bohemian Forest, it has the potential for local expansion if logging, fire, and game browsing are kept to a minimum.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

ISSN

0031-0182

e-ISSN

1872-616X

Volume of the periodical

635

Issue of the periodical within the volume

February

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

111950

UT code for WoS article

001141265900001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85179833039