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Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy)
- Source :
- Tinner, Willy; Vescovi, Elisa; van Leeuwen, Jacqueline F. N.; Colombaroli, Daniele; Henne, Paul Daniel; Boltshauser-Kaltenrieder, Petra; Morales del Molino, César; Beffa, Giorgia Zoe; Gnaegi, Bettina; van der Knaap, Willem Oscar; La Mantia, Tommaso; Pasta, Salvatore (2016). Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy). Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 25(5), pp. 499-519. Springer 10.1007/s00334-016-0569-8
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Springer, 2016.
-
Abstract
- Knowledge about vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily is scanty. We analysed five sites to fill this gap and used terrestrial plant macrofossils to establish robust radiocarbon chronologies. Palynological records from Gorgo Tondo, Gorgo Lungo, Marcato Cixé, Urgo Pietra Giordano and Gorgo Pollicino show that under natural or near natural conditions, deciduous forests (Quercus pubescens, Q. cerris, Fraxinus ornus, Ulmus), that included a substantial portion of evergreen broadleaved species (Q. suber, Q. ilex, Hedera helix), prevailed in the upper meso- mediterranean belt. Mesophilous deciduous and evergreen broadleaved trees (Fagus sylvatica, Ilex aquifolium) dominated in the natural or quasi-natural forests of the oro- mediterranean belt. Forests were repeatedly opened for agricultural purposes. Fire activity was closely associated with farming, providing evidence that burning was a primary land use tool since Neolithic times. Land use and fire activity intensified during the Early Neolithic at 5000 bc, at the onset of the Bronze Age at 2500 bc and at the onset of the Iron Age at 800 bc. Our data and previous studies suggest that the large majority of open land communities in Sicily, from the coastal lowlands to the mountain areas below the thorny-cushion Astragalus belt (ca. 1,800 m a.s.l.), would rapidly develop into forests if land use ceased. Mesophilous Fagus-Ilex forests developed under warm mid Holocene conditions and were resilient to the combined impacts of humans and climate. The past ecology suggests a resilience of these summer-drought adapted communities to climate warming of about 2 °C. Hence, they may be particularly suited to provide heat and drought-adapted Fagus sylvatica ecotypes for maintaining drought-sensitive Central European beech forests under global warming conditions.
- Subjects :
- 010506 paleontology
Archeology
Abies nebrodensi
Settore AGR/05 - Assestamento Forestale E Selvicoltura
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Fagus sylvatica
Macrofossil
Plant Science
Mediterranean
580 Plants (Botany)
01 natural sciences
Climate change
Abies nebrodensis
Ilex aquifolium
Beech
Holocene
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Archeology (arts and humanities)
biology
Ecology
Paleontology
Vegetation
Evergreen
biology.organism_classification
Deciduous
Charcoal
Pollen
570 Life sciences
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Tinner, Willy; Vescovi, Elisa; van Leeuwen, Jacqueline F. N.; Colombaroli, Daniele; Henne, Paul Daniel; Boltshauser-Kaltenrieder, Petra; Morales del Molino, César; Beffa, Giorgia Zoe; Gnaegi, Bettina; van der Knaap, Willem Oscar; La Mantia, Tommaso; Pasta, Salvatore (2016). Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy). Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 25(5), pp. 499-519. Springer 10.1007/s00334-016-0569-8 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00334-016-0569-8>
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....faf02823b3a2e53525e30a5f888e0e4a