Climate Change, Fire and Human Activity Drive Vegetation Change during the Last Eight Millennia in the Xistral Mountains of NW Iberia

Timothy Mighall; Antonio Martínez Cortizas; Noemí  Silva Sánchez; Olalla López Costas; Lourdes Lopez Merino

doi:10.3390/quat6010005

Climate Change, Fire and Human Activity Drive Vegetation Change during the Last Eight Millennia in the Xistral Mountains of NW Iberia

Timothy Mighall^* (Corresponding Author), Antonio Martínez Cortizas, Noemí Silva Sánchez, Olalla López Costas, Lourdes Lopez Merino

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

An 8500-year record of high-resolution pollen, non-pollen palynomorph, microscopic charcoal and selected geochemical data (Ti, Zr and Pb) is presented from an ombrotrophic mire from the Xistral Mountains, Galicia, North-West Iberia. The results suggest that vegetation changes over the last eight millennia are primarily the result of human disturbance, fire and climate change. Cli-mate and fire were the main factors influencing vegetation development during the early to mid-Holocene, including a short-lived decline in forest cover c. 8.2 cal. ka BP. Changes associated with the 4.2 and 2.8 cal. Ka BP events are less well defined. Human impact on vegetation became more pronounced by the late Holocene with major periods of forest disturbance from c. 3.1 cal. ka BP onwards: during the end of Metal Ages, Roman period and culminating in the permanent de-cline of deciduous forests in the post-Roman period, as agriculture and metallurgy intensified, leading to the creation of a cultural landscape. Climate change appears to become less influential as human activity dominates during the Late Holocene.

Original language	English
Article number	5
Number of pages	31
Journal	Quaternary
Volume	6
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/quat6010005
Publication status	Published - 5 Jan 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding:
OLC is funded by a Ramón y Cajal senior fellowship (RYC2020-030531-I) and the project “Pollutio” Plan Nacional (PID2019-111683RJ-I00) Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion. OLC and AMC are funded by “Grupos de Referencia Competitiva” (ED431C 2021/32) by Xunta de Galicia. Noemí Silva Sánchez is funded by a Juan de la Cierva-Formación Grant from the Spanish Government (ref: FJC2018-036266-I). LMM is supported by the Programa de Atracciόn de Talento modalidad 1 (2019-T1/AMB-12782; ECOSINK project) funded by the Comunidad de Madrid. LMM, TMM, AMC are funded by the project PALAEOFUN from the Plan Estatal (PID2020-115580RB-100), Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn

Data Availability Statement

Data can be obtained by contacting the lead author.

Keywords

ombrotrophic mire
climate change
human impact
pollen
non-pollen palynomorphs
geochemistry
Holocene
NW Iberia

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.3390/quat6010005Licence: CC BY

Mighall_etal_Q_Climate_Change_Fire_VOR
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Final published version, 6.26 MBLicence: CC BY

https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/quat6010005/s1Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

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title = "Climate Change, Fire and Human Activity Drive Vegetation Change during the Last Eight Millennia in the Xistral Mountains of NW Iberia",

abstract = "An 8500-year record of high-resolution pollen, non-pollen palynomorph, microscopic charcoal and selected geochemical data (Ti, Zr and Pb) is presented from an ombrotrophic mire from the Xistral Mountains, Galicia, North-West Iberia. The results suggest that vegetation changes over the last eight millennia are primarily the result of human disturbance, fire and climate change. Cli-mate and fire were the main factors influencing vegetation development during the early to mid-Holocene, including a short-lived decline in forest cover c. 8.2 cal. ka BP. Changes associated with the 4.2 and 2.8 cal. Ka BP events are less well defined. Human impact on vegetation became more pronounced by the late Holocene with major periods of forest disturbance from c. 3.1 cal. ka BP onwards: during the end of Metal Ages, Roman period and culminating in the permanent de-cline of deciduous forests in the post-Roman period, as agriculture and metallurgy intensified, leading to the creation of a cultural landscape. Climate change appears to become less influential as human activity dominates during the Late Holocene.",

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note = "Funding: OLC is funded by a Ram{\'o}n y Cajal senior fellowship (RYC2020-030531-I) and the project “Pollutio” Plan Nacional (PID2019-111683RJ-I00) Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion. OLC and AMC are funded by “Grupos de Referencia Competitiva” (ED431C 2021/32) by Xunta de Galicia. Noem{\'i} Silva S{\'a}nchez is funded by a Juan de la Cierva-Formaci{\'o}n Grant from the Spanish Government (ref: FJC2018-036266-I). LMM is supported by the Programa de Atracciόn de Talento modalidad 1 (2019-T1/AMB-12782; ECOSINK project) funded by the Comunidad de Madrid. LMM, TMM, AMC are funded by the project PALAEOFUN from the Plan Estatal (PID2020-115580RB-100), Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn",

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AU - Martínez Cortizas, Antonio

AU - Silva Sánchez, Noemí

AU - López Costas, Olalla

AU - Lopez Merino, Lourdes

N1 - Funding: OLC is funded by a Ramón y Cajal senior fellowship (RYC2020-030531-I) and the project “Pollutio” Plan Nacional (PID2019-111683RJ-I00) Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion. OLC and AMC are funded by “Grupos de Referencia Competitiva” (ED431C 2021/32) by Xunta de Galicia. Noemí Silva Sánchez is funded by a Juan de la Cierva-Formación Grant from the Spanish Government (ref: FJC2018-036266-I). LMM is supported by the Programa de Atracciόn de Talento modalidad 1 (2019-T1/AMB-12782; ECOSINK project) funded by the Comunidad de Madrid. LMM, TMM, AMC are funded by the project PALAEOFUN from the Plan Estatal (PID2020-115580RB-100), Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn

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N2 - An 8500-year record of high-resolution pollen, non-pollen palynomorph, microscopic charcoal and selected geochemical data (Ti, Zr and Pb) is presented from an ombrotrophic mire from the Xistral Mountains, Galicia, North-West Iberia. The results suggest that vegetation changes over the last eight millennia are primarily the result of human disturbance, fire and climate change. Cli-mate and fire were the main factors influencing vegetation development during the early to mid-Holocene, including a short-lived decline in forest cover c. 8.2 cal. ka BP. Changes associated with the 4.2 and 2.8 cal. Ka BP events are less well defined. Human impact on vegetation became more pronounced by the late Holocene with major periods of forest disturbance from c. 3.1 cal. ka BP onwards: during the end of Metal Ages, Roman period and culminating in the permanent de-cline of deciduous forests in the post-Roman period, as agriculture and metallurgy intensified, leading to the creation of a cultural landscape. Climate change appears to become less influential as human activity dominates during the Late Holocene.

AB - An 8500-year record of high-resolution pollen, non-pollen palynomorph, microscopic charcoal and selected geochemical data (Ti, Zr and Pb) is presented from an ombrotrophic mire from the Xistral Mountains, Galicia, North-West Iberia. The results suggest that vegetation changes over the last eight millennia are primarily the result of human disturbance, fire and climate change. Cli-mate and fire were the main factors influencing vegetation development during the early to mid-Holocene, including a short-lived decline in forest cover c. 8.2 cal. ka BP. Changes associated with the 4.2 and 2.8 cal. Ka BP events are less well defined. Human impact on vegetation became more pronounced by the late Holocene with major periods of forest disturbance from c. 3.1 cal. ka BP onwards: during the end of Metal Ages, Roman period and culminating in the permanent de-cline of deciduous forests in the post-Roman period, as agriculture and metallurgy intensified, leading to the creation of a cultural landscape. Climate change appears to become less influential as human activity dominates during the Late Holocene.

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KW - human impact

KW - pollen

KW - non-pollen palynomorphs

KW - geochemistry

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KW - NW Iberia

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DO - 10.3390/quat6010005

M3 - Article

SN - 2571-550X

VL - 6

JO - Quaternary

JF - Quaternary

IS - 1

M1 - 5

ER -

Climate Change, Fire and Human Activity Drive Vegetation Change during the Last Eight Millennia in the Xistral Mountains of NW Iberia

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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