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To better understand the long-term changes of the East Asian summer monsoon precipitation ( Pjja), quantitative reconstructions and model simulations are needed. Here, we develop continental-scale pollen-based transfer functions for Pjja with weighted averaging–partial least squares (WA-PLS) regression and a Bayesian multinomial regression method. We apply these transfer functions to a set of fossil pollen data from monsoonal China for quantitatively reconstructing the Pjja changes over the last 9500 years. We compare the reconstructions with Pjja simulations from a coupled atmosphere–ocean–sea ice general circulation model (the Kiel Climate Model, KCM). The results of cross-validation tests for the transfer functions show that both the WA-PLS model ( r2 = 0.83, root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) = 112.11 mm) and the Bayesian model ( r2 = 0.86, RMSEP = 107.67 mm) exhibit good predictive performance. We stack all Pjja reconstructions from northern China to a summary curve. The stacked record reveals that Pjja increased since 9500 cal. yr BP, attained its highest level during the Holocene summer monsoon maximum (HSMM) at ~7000–4000 cal. yr BP and declined to present. The KCM output and the reconstructions differ in the early-Holocene (~9500–7000 cal. yr BP) where the model suggests higher Pjja than the reconstructions. Moreover, during the HSMM, the amplitude of the Pjja changes (~20–60 mm above present) in simulations is lower than the reconstructed changes (~70–110 mm above present). The rising (declining) Pjja patterns in reconstructions before (after) the HSMM are more pronounced and fluctuating than in simulations. Other palaeohydrological data such as lake-level reconstructions indicate substantial monsoon precipitation changes throughout the Holocene. Our results therefore show that the KCM underestimates the overall amplitude of the Holocene monsoon precipitation changes.

Fossil pollen, conifer stomata, and charcoal records for the last 10,000 years were studied from three small hollow sites (Larix Hollow, Mosquito Hollow, and Olga Hollow) located at the modern western range limit of Siberian larch ( Larix sibirica) in northwestern Russia to investigate the role of forest fires in stand-scale dynamics of taiga vegetation. Wavelet coherence analysis was utilized to reveal the significance of fire on the vegetation composition at different timescales by assessing the phase and strength of the relationship between forest fires and most common boreal tree taxa in a time–frequency window. Pollen and stomata data show that all of the modern-day common tree taxa, including Norway spruce ( Picea abies) and Siberian larch, have been present in the study region since the early Holocene. The absence of charcoal layers at Mosquito Hollow suggests that this site has acted as a fire-free refugium with continuous dominance of spruce throughout the Holocene. Meanwhile, the Larix Hollow record indicates frequent local fire events and as a consequence, a more variable tree species composition. The wavelet coherence results show that the impact of forest fires on vegetation varies from short-term (

Quantitative palaeoclimatic reconstructions based on biological fossils are a major source of information on long-term climatic variability. Such reconstructions typically use some kind of a modern calibration data set describing the variation of the studied biological group in present-day climate space. Here, we explore the effect of calibration data set selection on palaeoclimatic reconstructions, by creating alternate calibration data sets via stratified random sampling to reconstruct mean July temperature (Tjul) for four fossil pollen sequences from northern Europe. We show that palaeoclimatic reconstructions using methods based on taxon-response models can be highly sensitive to the calibration data set used. In particular, the absolute reconstructed temperatures show great sensitivity to calibration data selection, which suggests that the absolute values of palaeoclimatic reconstructions may not be robust. By contrast, we find the relative shapes of the reconstructed curves to be more robust to cali...

We compare a Bayesian modelling-based technique with weighted averaging (WA) and weighted averaging-partial least squares (WA-PLS) regression in pollen-based summer temperature transfer function calibration. We test the methods using a new, 113-sample calibration set from Estonia, Lithuania and European Russia, and a Holocene fossil pollen sequence from Lake Kharinei, a previously studied lake in northeast European Russia. We find WA-PLS to outperform WA, probably because of smaller edge-effect biases in the ends of the calibration set gradient. The Bayesian-based calibration models show further improved performance compared with WA-PLS in leave-one-out cross-validation, while additional h-block cross-validation shows the Bayesian method to be little affected by spatial autocorrelation. Comparison with independent climate proxies reveals, however, some clear biases in the Bayesian palaeotemperature reconstructions, likely reflecting in part some specific limitations of our calibration set. As the selected prior parameters can significantly affect both Bayesian cross-validation performance and reconstructions, there is a clear need to further test the Bayesian method in different geographic contexts and over different timescales, with special attention given to the selection of the most realistic priors in each situation. In general, our finding that statistically well-performing transfer functions may produce clearly differing palaeotemperature reconstructions urges caution in transfer function-based inferences. We additionally test a spatially restricted, 58-sample subset of the full 113-sample calibration set. We find some reduced biases with the smaller set, likely because of complex, partially bimodal responses of several taxa along the longer temperature gradient, ill-suited for calibration methods assuming unimodal responses to climate.

Prehistoric hunter-gatherer population size is often assumed to follow climatic and other environmental forcings that affect environmental productivity and the availability of food for human foragers. We tested this assumption by studying the co-variation of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records during the Holocene in eastern Fennoscandia. The reconstruction of population history is based on the summed probability distribution of archaeological radiocarbon dates, and environmental changes are tracked with locally available, high-resolution biological and physical proxies that are relevant in terms of hunter-gatherer food availability and population dynamics. The results show major population growth during the period of high summer temperature and high productivity of the terrestrial, lacustrine and marine ecosystems that occurred during 7500–5700 cal. yr BP. The growth was followed by an abrupt decline during 5500–4000 cal. yr BP correlating with the onset of late-Holocene cooling and a major forest ecosystem change brought about by the expansion of Norway spruce and the associated change from species-rich mixed forests to a conifer-dominated boreal ecosystem. Forest ecosystem changes likely enforced the negative effects of decreasing productivity on hunter-gatherer food availability. The link between population and environmental proxies breaks down along with the intensification of agriculture after 3500 cal. yr BP, which indicates that agriculture weakened the environmental forcing on long-term human population dynamics.

Holocene mean July ( TJul) and mean January ( TJan) temperatures were reconstructed at Lake Trehörningen in southwest Sweden using pollen–climate calibration functions and converted into anomalies relative to modern temperatures. The anomalies were applied to 28 meteorological stations in Denmark, with each station adjusted to account for spatial variability in both TJuland TJan. The resulting reconstructions were merged to create composite TJuland TJanrecords. The individual reconstructions were also used to establish the parameterization of the TJuland TJanvalues, resulting in Holocene temperature maps for all of Denmark. Low TJulvalues characterised southern Sweden and Denmark at the start of the Holocene, followed by an increase during the early Holocene. Likewise, TJanwas initially low at the start of the Holocene, followed by an increase between 10 500 and 9900 cal. BP. Thereafter, TJanwas relatively stable between 9900 and 8000 cal. BP. The general increase in temperature during the early Holocene was accompanied by a decrease in the amplitude of the mean monthly temperature record, indicating that a maritime climate was established at this time. Maximum TJuland TJanare recorded during the mid-Holocene interval from 8000 to 4500 cal. BP, with consistently high July temperatures (>18°C) between 6700 and 5400 cal. BP. During the late Holocene, both TJuland TJangradually decreased. The Holocene temperature maps of Denmark reveal spatial patterns in both summer and winter temperature. In the summer, an east–west decreasing temperature gradient, related to a maritime effect, has persisted in Denmark throughout the Holocene. In contrast, the temperature in winter has varied spatially along subtle coastal–inland and topographical gradients. Various mechanisms have been invoked to explain the Holocene trends in temperature, including the melting of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet, changes in insolation, and changes in the dominant type of atmospheric circulation affecting northern Europe.

A detailed understanding of decadal to millennial-scale climate changes requires seasonal-scale (summer-winter) reconstructions of past precipitation and temperature fluctuations. Comparing seasonally resolved varve records with pollen-based sum of growing degree-days (GDD) reconstructions from Lake Nautajärvi, we examined the intra-annual nature of climate variability in central southern Finland during the Holocene. The organic varve record and the GDD reconstruction show roughly comparable trends supporting the interpretation that both proxies predominantly reflect summer temperatures in the study area. The records suggest low but rising early-Holocene (9500 to 8500 cal. yr BP) summer temperatures. The Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) in the GDD record dates to about 7500 to 4500 cal. yr BP, but the organic varve record along with reconstructed changes in vegetation composition, notably a peak of Tilia pollen percentages, indicate that during the HTM there was a trend towards a more continental climate with maximum mid-summer temperatures reached at 6500 to 4500 cal. yr BP. Both records reflect the start of the post-HTM cooling at about 4500 cal. yr BP, simultaneously with an increase of the amount of catchment erosion and mineral matter influx into the lake, suggesting gradually colder and/or longer winters with high net accumulation of snow. The organic varve record and the GDD record start to diverge at 2000 cal. yr BP, possibly owing to the human influence on catchment processes. The reconstructed mid-Holocene summer temperature peak deviates from the regional climate model outputs, which suggest highest summer temperatures during the early Holocene.

A high-resolution plant macrofossil analysis was applied to investigate wetness dynamics in a southern Finnish boreal bog, Kontolanrahka, during the last 5000 years. The chronological control and the age—depth model were based on 40 AMS radiocarbon dates. Pollen analysis provided information on regional-scale vegetation changes. Macrofossil analysis revealed prominent changes in vegetation assemblages during the late Holocene, indicating fluctuations in water-table. The reconstruction suggests that at the coring point, which nowadays is a relatively wet lawn, habitat type has repeatedly varied between transient communities similar to those currently represented in dry hummocks, very wet lawns and even hollows. In order to quantify historical changes in water-table, Generalized Additive Models (GAM) were used to investigate the current relationships between surface plant species and water-table depth. Modern water-table measurements and a survey of associated plant communities along moisture gradients provided data for GAM-analyses. The plant species showed unimodal distributions with apparent optima and narrow tolerances along the water-table gradient. A transfer function for water-table reconstruction was created by calibrating plant macrofossil records against the modern vegetation/water-table relationship using the weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS) regression method. The quantitative water-table reconstruction for the late Holocene showed that the water-table depth had varied between 38 and 2.5 cm, the root mean square error of prediction being 3 cm. The detected historical wet and dry shifts were compared with other similar data from Finland, Sweden and Estonia, and from Western Europe. Despite some similarities, especially during the last c. 1000 years, noticeable differences in timing and duration occur, suggesting they may not have been driven only by climate, but also by local factors, including surface fires.

A 8400—7700 yr cal. BP section of the sediments of a small lake in southern Finland was studied by high-resolution pollen and cladoceran analyses to examine the response of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to the 8200 cal. yr BP cold event. Furthermore, a pollen-based Tann reconstruction and proportions of chydorid ephippia were used to determine changes in temperature and in the length of open-water season during the event. The pollen data, with abrupt decreases of the early-flowering Alnus, Corylus and Ulmus at c. 8350 cal. yr BP, may partly reflect vegetation dynamics but possibly also decreased pollen productivity and reproduction caused by cold winters and springs. The reconstructed Tann indicated a rapid temperature fall and a subsequent recovery. Proportions of chydorid ephippia suggested a considerable reduction in the length of open-water season at the beginning of the event, followed by periodically shorter open-water seasons. In the aquatic ecosystem only one species, the dominant planktonic cladoceran Bosmina longirostris, responded by decreasing dramatically and almost became extinct during the coldest period. However, we were unable to reconstruct the causative link between the inferred climate change and its decrease. The response of both aquatic and terrestrial proxies at c. 8350 cal. yr BP was consistent, indicating an abrupt start of the event and also an abrupt end at c. 8100 cal. yr BP.

During the last decade Quaternary pollen analysis has developed towards improved pollen-taxonomical precision, automated pollen identification and more rigorous definition of pollen assemblage zones. There have been significant efforts to model the spatial representation of pollen records in lake sediments which is important for more precise interpretation of the pollen records in terms of past vegetation patterns. We review the difficulties in matching modelled post-glacial plant migration patterns with pollen-based palaeorecords and discuss the potential of DNA analysis of pollen to investigate the ancestry and past migration pathways of the plants. In population ecology there has been an acceleration of the widely advocated conceptual advance of pollen-analytical research from vaguely defined ‘environmental reconstructions’ towards investigating more precisely defined ecological problems aligned with the current ecological theories. Examples of such research have included an increasing number of investigations about the ecological impacts of past disturbances, often integrating pollen records with other palaeoecological data. Such an approach has also been applied to incorporate a time perspective to the questions of ecosystem restoration, nature conservation and forest management. New lines of research are the use of pollen analysis to study long-term patterns of vegetation diversity, such as the role of glacial-age vegetation fragmentation as a cause of Amazonian rain forest diversity, and to investigate links between pollen richness and past plant diversity. Palaeoclimatological use of pollen records has become more quantitative and has included more precise and rigorous testing of pollen-climate calibration models with modern climate data. These tests show the approximate nature of the models and warn against a too straightforward climatic interpretation of the small-scale variation in reconstructions. Pollen-based climate reconstructions over the Late Glacial-early Holocene boundary have indicated that pollen-stratigraphical changes have been rapid with no evidence for response lags. This does not rule out the possibility of migrational disequilibrium, however, as the rapid changes may be mostly due to nonmigrational responses of existing vegetation. It is therefore difficult to assess whether the amplitude of reconstructed climate change reflects real climate change. Other outstanding problems remain the obscure relationship of pollen production and climate, the role of human impact and other nonclimatic factors, and nonanalogue situations.

The northern Fennoscandian tree-line area consists of fairly distinct vegetation zones. The pollen stratigraphies of two boreal sites and two tundra sites were studied and the palynological data analysed numerically. The main aim was to measure palynological richness, using rarefaction analysis, and to assess its value in reflecting patterns of past floristic richness. Rates of palynological change were measured using both chord distance and Euclidean distance as the dissimilarity coefficient. The results show low palynological richness during the Younger Dryas. The values increase rapidly at the transition to the Holocene. During the Holocene the values are in reversed order in relation to present vegetation density, the tundra sites having the highest palynological richness. This suggests that differences in the size of the pollen catchment may have an important role in palynological richness estimates and that no straight comparisons of palynological richness should be made between sites from different vegetation zones. Most pronounced changes in palynological richness take place in the Lake Rautuselka core, where high Pinus pollen influx is correlated with low palynological richness. At the boreal sites, high rates of change are associated with higher palynological richness whereas no similar relationship is observed at the tundra sites.

Recent investigations show that the pollen accumulation rate (PAR) of the common tree taxa is directly related to the biomass and, by inference, to the population size of the taxa around the study site. Fossil PAR records preserved in lakes provide therefore a potential proxy for quantitative biomass and population reconstructions. We use the high-resolution PAR records obtained from two accurately dated lake sediment cores in Finland to generate quantitative Holocene biomass records for Pinus, Picea and Betula, the most common tree taxa of the European Boreal forest. PAR values were calibrated to biomass values by comparing the modern PAR values with the modern biomass values and assuming a linear relationship between the past PAR and biomass values. The obtained PAR and biomass values and trends are remarkably coherent between the two records. Pinus has a stable Holocene biomass size and its modern biomass, about 20 t/ha, corresponds with the natural Pinus biomass in the study regions. In contrast, Picea immigrated from the East during the mid Holocene, had a maximum biomass, 50—60 t/ha, at 3500—1000 cal. yr BP, and declined strongly during the last 1500—1000 years as a result of increased human activity and related rise of fire frequency. Thus, the modern Picea biomass in the study regions, about 22 t/ha, is only 35—40% of the natural Picea biomass. The results of this pilot study demonstrate the potential of the calibrated PAR data in quantitative biomass and population reconstructions. Such reconstructions can provide fresh insights into the structure of past plant communities and, when combined with records reflecting palaeoclimates, natural disturbances, and human activity, can help to disentangle the long-term importance of different enviromental drivers to changes in plants populations and ecosystems.