Abstract
Pollen diagrams from seven lakes with annually laminated sediments sampled at 40-year intervals are analyzed to isolate the climatic effects from other effects on the long-term dynamics of vegetation during the past 1000–2000 years along a transect from Maine to Minnesota. Principal components analysis is used to reduce the dimensionality of the pollen data. The pollen records from all lakes show long-term trends, medium frequency oscillations, and higher frequency fluctuations. The long-term trend is associated with the neoglacial expansion of the boreal forest. The mechanism causing this replacement is a change in frequency of air masses in the area. The medium-frequency oscillations are also associated with climate changes, the most recent of which is the ‘Little Ice Age’. The climate-related mechanism causing the medium-frequency changes may be changes in disturbance frequency. The higher frequency fluctuations may also be related to disturbance.
This analysis of pollen diagrams into time scales of variation has enabled the separation of climate from other factors affecting vegetation dynamics. By comparing the principal components across a transect of sites it proved possible to interpret the climatic effects on vegetation at most sites and not only at range boundaries and ‘sensitive’ sites.
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This study was supported by NSF grant numbers ATM-8219079, ATM-7926039, and ATM-7423041. I would like to thank John Kutzbach for support, advice and comments. The sediment cores used in this study were collected by A. M. Swain and R. Steventon. Pollen data were provided by A. M. Swain, G. Peterson, and M. Winkler. T. Webb, J. Overpeck, H. Virji, M. Winkler, R. Hyde, D. Clark and P. Bartlein discussed these ideas or read various versions of the manuscript. Thanks also to M. Woodworth for help in getting the manuscript out and R. Steventon for processing the samples. R. Purington drafted Fig. 1. Finally, thanks to T. F. H. Allen and T. Starr who, although they do not know it, led me onto some of the ideas in this paper.
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Gajewski, K. Climatic impacts on the vegetation of eastern North America during the past 2000 years. Vegetatio 68, 179–190 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00114719
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00114719