Sudden disappearance of yew (Taxus baccata) woodlands from eastern England coincides with a possible climate event around 4.2 ka ago

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F86652079%3A_____%2F24%3A00582131" target="_blank" >RIV/86652079:_____/24:00582131 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/00216224:14310/24:00136071

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379123004626?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" >https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379123004626?via%3Dihub</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108414" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108414</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Sudden disappearance of yew (Taxus baccata) woodlands from eastern England coincides with a possible climate event around 4.2 ka ago

Original language description

Tree-ring chronologies form the backbone of high-resolution palaeoclimatology. However, their number declines drastically prior to medieval times, and only a few such records worldwide extend back to the mid-Holocene. Here, we present a collection of more than 400 subfossil yew (Taxus baccata L.) trees excavated from near sea-level peat-rich sediments in the Fenland region of eastern England. The well-preserved yew trunks are between two and eight metres long, often exhibit adventitious root layers, and contain up to 400 rings of highly irregular growth. Combined dendrochronological and radiocarbon dating resulted in two tree-ring width chronologies that comprise 36 and 32 trees, span 413 and 418 years, exhibit mean inter-series correlations (Rbar) of 0.50 and 0.51, and were provisionally dated to 5225-4813 (+/- 4) and 4612-4195 (+/- 6) years cal BP. Together with a total of 63 radiocarbon dates (14C), our subfossil tree-ring evidence suggests that yew establishment (or onset of preservation) began-5250 years cal BP and resulted in extensive climax forests between 5200 and 4200 years cal BP. A first stage of yew decline-4800-4600 years cal BP was possibly caused by oxygen deprivation from soil wetting, whereas yew disappearance-4200 years cal BP is suggested to have been triggered by marine inundation as a consequence of rapid sea-level rise. Both phases of yew decline in eastern England coincide with marked reductions in subfossil oak and pine from peatbogs in Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands. Our results emphasise the potential to develop a dendrochronological network in coastal England for better understanding of larger-scale climate and environmental changes during the mid-Holocene, including the still debated 4.2 ka climate event. Moreover, we expect our subfossil yew chronologies to facilitate the dating of local archaeological remains, refine sea-level reconstructions around the British Isles, and contribute to the international radiocarbon calibration curve IntCal.

Czech name

—

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

10506 - Paleontology

Project

—

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

Quaternary Science Reviews

ISSN

0277-3791

e-ISSN

1873-457X

Volume of the periodical

323

Issue of the periodical within the volume

JAN

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

108414

UT code for WoS article

001138596100001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85178222703