Glacial Legacies on Interglacial Vegetation at the Pliocene-Pleistocene Transition in NE Asia

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2016 Jun 25

PMID 27338025

Citations 14

Authors

Ulrike Herzschuh

H John B Birks

Thomas Laepple

Andrei Andreev

Martin Melles

Julie Brigham-Grette

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Broad-scale climate control of vegetation is widely assumed. Vegetation-climate lags are generally thought to have lasted no more than a few centuries. Here our palaeoecological study challenges this concept over glacial-interglacial timescales. Through multivariate analyses of pollen assemblages from Lake El'gygytgyn, Russian Far East and other data we show that interglacial vegetation during the Plio-Pleistocene transition mainly reflects conditions of the preceding glacial instead of contemporary interglacial climate. Vegetation-climate disequilibrium may persist for several millennia, related to the combined effects of permafrost persistence, distant glacial refugia and fire. In contrast, no effects from the preceding interglacial on glacial vegetation are detected. We propose that disequilibrium was stronger during the Plio-Pleistocene transition than during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period when, in addition to climate, herbivory was important. By analogy to the past, we suggest today's widespread larch ecosystem on permafrost is not in climate equilibrium. Vegetation-based reconstructions of interglacial climates used to assess atmospheric CO2-temperature relationships may thus yield misleading simulations of past global climate sensitivity.

Citing Articles

Biological Processes Underlying Genetic Adaptation of Larches to Cold and Dry Winter Conditions in Eastern Siberia.

Meucci S, Kruse S, Haupt S, Stoof-Leichsenring K, Krutovsky K, Bernhardt N Ecol Evol. 2025; 15(2):e70940.

PMID: 39949889 PMC: 11821550. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.70940.

Plant interactions associated with a directional shift in the richness range size relationship during the Glacial-Holocene transition in the Arctic.

Liu Y, Lisovski S, Courtin J, Stoof-Leichsenring K, Herzschuh U Nat Commun. 2025; 16(1):1128.

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Post-Glacial Vegetation Trajectories on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau Reflect Millennial-Scale Migration Lags in Complex Mountain Terrain Based on Sedimentary Ancient DNA and Dynamic Dispersal Modeling.

Shen W, Kruse S, Liu S, Stoof-Leichsenring K, Kuhn I, Li W Ecol Evol. 2025; 15(1):e70862.

PMID: 39850751 PMC: 11754073. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.70862.

Simulating long-term wildfire impacts on boreal forest structure in Central Yakutia, Siberia, since the Last Glacial Maximum.

Gluckler R, Gloy J, Dietze E, Herzschuh U, Kruse S Fire Ecol. 2024; 20(1):1.

PMID: 38186675 PMC: 10766680. DOI: 10.1186/s42408-023-00238-8.

Biome- and timescale-dependence of Holocene vegetation variability in the Northern Hemisphere.

Hebert R, Schild L, Laepple T, Herzschuh U Ecol Evol. 2023; 13(10):e10585.

PMID: 37886430 PMC: 10598260. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10585.

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