Resilience of plant and testate amoeba communities after climatic and anthropogenic disturbances in a Baltic bog in Northern Poland: Implications for ecological restoration

The Holocene ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariusz Gałka ◽  
Kazimierz Tobolski ◽  
Aleksandra Górska ◽  
Mariusz Lamentowicz
Keyword(s):  
Human Impacts ◽  
Testate Amoebae ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Testate Amoeba ◽  
Raised Bogs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ombrotrophic Peatland ◽  
History Of ◽  
Climate Cooling

This study explores the history of the development of Sphagnum communities in an ombrotrophic peatland – Bagno Kusowo – over the past 650 years, based on high-resolution plant macrofossil and testate amoebae analysis. Our research provided information related to the length of peatland existence and the characteristics of its natural/pristine state before the most recent human impacts. Changes in the Sphagnum communities before human impact could have resulted from climate cooling during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA). In this cold and unstable hydrological period, among vascular plants, Eriophorum vaginatum and Baeothryon caespitosum dominated in the peatland vegetation. Peat-forming Sphagnum communities survived the drainage conducted during the 20th century at the Bagno Kusowo bog. We provide three important messages through this study: (1) testate amoebae reflect similar hydrological trends in two peat cores despite considerable microhabitat variability, (2) average long-term water level 10 cm below the surface should be a target for active bog conservation and (3) sites like Bagno Kusowo are extremely important to preserve the remains of pristine biodiversity (including genetic diversity of plants and protists) that was completely removed from most of the raised bogs in Europe due to human activities, for example, drainage.

The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Applied Archaeology

This volume presents theoretical discussions, methodological outlines, and case-studies describing the discursive overlap of the theoretical and methodological framework of historical ecology, and the emerging sub-discipline of applied archaeology. Historical ecology is based on the recognition that humans are not only capable of modifying their environments, but that all environments on earth have already been directly or indirectly modified. This includes anthropogenic climate change, widespread deforestations, and species extinctions, but also very local alterations, the effects of which may last a few years, or may have legacies lasting centuries or more. The volume presents a range of case-studies that highlight how modern environments and landscapes have been shaped by humans, and includes outlines of the methods we can use to better understand these changes. Authors include anthropologists, archaeologists, human geographers, and historians, all of whom are focussed not just on defining human impacts in the past, but on the ways that understanding these changes can help inform contemporary practices and development policies. Some present examples of how ancient or current societies have modified their environments in sustainable ways, while others highlight practices that had unintended long-term consequences. The possibility of learning from these practices are discussed, as is the potential of using the long history of human resource exploitation as a method for building or testing models of future change. Rather than merely acting as advocates for historical data, the chapters collected here also warn of the limitations of drawing simple lessons from the history of interactions between humans and their environments, and note that doing so is potentially just as damaging as ignoring these rich sources of data.

Formation, succession and landscape history of Central-European summit raised bogs: A multiproxy study from the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains

The Holocene ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydie Dudová ◽  
Petra Hájková ◽  
Hana Buchtová ◽  
Vĕra Opravilová
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Testate Amoebae ◽  
Gradual Transition ◽  
Testate Amoeba ◽  
Central European ◽  
Raised Bogs ◽  
Middle Holocene ◽  
Poor Fen ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Conservation

Central-European raised bogs, developed on mountain summits, are specific ecosystems of high conservation importance, but their history remains largely unknown. Pollen, macrofossils, testate amoebae and peat characteristics were analysed in a peat sequence of the Vozka bog (Hrubý Jeseník Mountains, Eastern Sudetes, Czech Republic). Past water chemistry and water-table depths were reconstructed by transfer functions calibrated from recent testate amoeba data and long-term environmental averages. Peat initiation started in the middle Holocene (approximately 4200 bc) by the process of paludification, resembling the development of Atlantic blanket bogs. Around 100 bc the vegetation changed from Eriophorum vaginatum-poor fen to the ombrotrophic-bog vegetation similar to the recent situation. A hiatus in peat sequence was revealed between ad 1320 and 1954. It can be explained either by human activities, or by an extreme drought causing decomposition of previously accumulated peat. Local bog development was largely independent of landscape development inferred from pollen records. In the middle Holocene, mixed spruce-elm-hazel woodland was recorded close to the treeline. During 2400–800 bc a gradual transition to mixed spruce-fir woodlands with admixture of beech took place, and from approximately 800 bc spruce and fir became dominant. The major human impact started approximately ad 1230 and was connected with settlement and mining in the foothills.

Past testate amoeba communities in landslide mountain fens (Polish Carpathians): The relationship between shell types and sediment

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362199464
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Marcisz ◽  
Krzysztof Buczek ◽  
Mariusz Gałka ◽  
Włodzimierz Margielewski ◽  
Matthieu Mulot ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Testate Amoebae ◽  
Mineral Matter ◽  
Testate Amoeba ◽  
Run Off ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Depth To Water Table ◽  
Polish Carpathians ◽  
The Relationship

Landslide mountain fens formed in landslide depressions are dynamic environments as their development is disturbed by a number of factors, for example, landslides, slopewash, and surface run-off. These processes lead to the accumulation of mineral material and wood in peat. Disturbed peatlands are interesting archives of past environmental changes, but they may be challenging for providing biotic proxy-based quantitative reconstructions. Here we investigate long-term changes in testate amoeba communities from two landslide mountain fens – so far an overlooked habitat for testate amoeba investigations. Our results show that abundances of testate amoebae are extremely low in this type of peatlands, therefore not suitable for providing quantitative depth-to-water table reconstructions. However, frequent shifts of dominant testate amoeba species reflect dynamic lithological situation of the studied fens. We observed that high and stable mineral matter input into the peatlands was associated with high abundances of species producing agglutinated (xenosomic) as well as idiosomic shells which prevailed in the testate amoeba communities in both analyzed profiles. This is the first study that explores testate amoebae of landslide mountain fens in such detail, providing novel information about microbial communities of these ecosystems.

How the Desert got a Past: A History of Quaternary Research in Australia’s Deserts

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Smith
Keyword(s):  
Climate Changes ◽  
Conceptual Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

This paper examines how the past of desert landscapes has been interpreted since European explorers and scientists first encountered them. It charts the research that created the conceptual space within which archaeologists and Quaternarists now work. Studies from the 1840s–1960s created the notion of a ‘Great Australian Arid Period'. The 1960s studies of Lake Mungo and the Willandra Lakes by Jim Bowler revealed the cyclical nature of palaeolakes, that changed with climate changes in the Pleistocene, and the complexity of desert pasts. SLEADS and other researchers in the 1980s used thermoluminescence techniques that showed further complexities in desert lands beyond the Willandra particularly through new studies in the Strzelecki and Simpson Dunefields, Lake Eyre, Lake Woods and Lake Gregory. Australian deserts are varied and have very different histories. Far from ‘timeless lands', they have carried detailed information about long-term climate changes on continental scales.

scholarly journals Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kornelia Kończal
Keyword(s):  
Significant Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In early 2018, the Polish parliament adopted controversial legislation criminalising assertions regarding the complicity of the ‘Polish Nation’ and the ‘Polish State’ in the Holocaust. The so-called Polish Holocaust Law provoked not only a heated debate in Poland, but also serious international tensions. As a result, it was amended only five months after its adoption. The reason why it is worth taking a closer look at the socio-cultural foundations and political functions of the short-lived legislation is twofold. Empirically, the short history of the Law reveals a great deal about the long-term role of Jews in the Polish collective memory as an unmatched Significant Other. Conceptually, the short life of the Law, along with its afterlife, helps capture poll-driven, manifestly moralistic and anti-pluralist imaginings of the past, which I refer to as ‘mnemonic populism’. By exploring the relationship between popular and political images of the past in contemporary Poland, this article argues for joining memory and populism studies in order to better understand what can happen to history in illiberal surroundings.

scholarly journals Glacier and ocean variability in Ata Sund, west Greenland, since 1400 CE

The Holocene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1681-1693
Author(s):  
Fanny Ekblom Johansson ◽  
David J Wangner ◽  
Camilla S Andresen ◽  
Jostein Bakke ◽  
Eivind Nagel Støren ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Bottom Water ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Bottom Water Temperature ◽  
Ocean Variability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Climate Cooling ◽  
Tomography Scan

To improve knowledge of marine-terminating glaciers in western Greenland, marine sediment cores from the Ata Sund fjord system, hosting two outlet glaciers, Eqip Sermia and Kangilerngata Sermia, were investigated. The main objective was to reconstruct glacial activity and paleoceanographic conditions during the past 600 years. Ice-rafted debris (IRD) was quantified by wet-sieving sediment samples and by using a computed tomography scan. Variability in relative bottom water temperatures in the fjord was reconstructed using foraminiferal analysis. On the basis of this, three periods of distinct glacial regimes were identified: Period 1 (1380–1810 CE), which covers the culmination of the Little Ice Age (LIA) and is interpreted as having advanced glaciers with high IRD content. Period 2 (1810–1920 CE), the end of the LIA, which was characterised by a lowering of the glaciers’ calving flux in response to climate cooling. During Period 3 (1920–2014 CE), both glaciers retreated substantially to their present-day extent. The bottom water temperature started to decrease just before Period 2 and remained relatively low until just before the end of Period 3. This is interpreted as a local response to increased glacial meltwater input. Our study was compared with a study in Disko Bay, nearby Jakobshavn Glacier and the result shows that both of these Greenlandic marine-terminating glaciers are responding to large-scale climate change. However, the specific imprint on the glaciers and the different fjord waters in front of them result in contrasting glacial responses and sediment archives in their respective fjords.

To Utopia and Back: A Cycle in the History of the Chinese Communist Party

1981 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 407-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Past ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Sixtieth Anniversary

On 1 July 1981 the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation. To mark this occasion, the Party itself issued a statement summing up the experience of recent decades. It seems an appropriate time for outsiders as well to look back over the history of the past 60 years, in the hope of grasping long-term tendencies which may continue to influence events in the future.

scholarly journals Simulated retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ since the Little Ice Age controlled by geometry

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2249-2266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Steiger ◽  
Kerim H. Nisancioglu ◽  
Henning Åkesson ◽  
Basile de Fleurian ◽  
Faezeh M. Nick
Keyword(s):  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Regional Warming ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Term Response

Abstract. Rapid retreat of Greenland's marine-terminating glaciers coincides with regional warming trends, which have broadly been used to explain these rapid changes. However, outlet glaciers within similar climate regimes experience widely contrasting retreat patterns, suggesting that the local fjord geometry could be an important additional factor. To assess the relative role of climate and fjord geometry, we use the retreat history of Jakobshavn Isbræ, West Greenland, since the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum in 1850 as a baseline for the parameterization of a depth- and width-integrated ice flow model. The impact of fjord geometry is isolated by using a linearly increasing climate forcing since the LIA and testing a range of simplified geometries. We find that the total length of retreat is determined by external factors – such as hydrofracturing, submarine melt and buttressing by sea ice – whereas the retreat pattern is governed by the fjord geometry. Narrow and shallow areas provide pinning points and cause delayed but rapid retreat without additional climate warming, after decades of grounding line stability. We suggest that these geometric pinning points may be used to locate potential sites for moraine formation and to predict the long-term response of the glacier. As a consequence, to assess the impact of climate on the retreat history of a glacier, each system has to be analyzed with knowledge of its historic retreat and the local fjord geometry.

Small peatland with a big story: 600-year paleoecological and historical data from a kettle-hole peatland in Western Russia

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110332
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Mroczkowska ◽  
Piotr Kittel ◽  
Katarzyna Marcisz ◽  
Ekaterina Dolbunova ◽  
Emilie Gauthier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Impact ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Testate Amoebae ◽  
The Past ◽  
Kettle Hole ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical And Chemical

Peatlands are important records of past environmental changes. Based on a multiproxy analysis, the main factors influencing the evolution of a peatland can be divided into autogenic and allogenic. Among the important allogenic factors, apart from climate change, are deforestation and drainage, which are directly associated with human impact. Numerous consequences arise from these processes, the most important of which are physical and chemical denudation in the catchment and the related hydrological disturbances in the catchment and peatland. The present study determined how human activities and the past climatic variability mutually influenced the development of a small peatland ecosystem. The main goals of the study were: (1) to trace the local changes of the peatland history over the past 600 years, (2) to investigate their relationship with changes in regional hydroclimate patterns, and (3) to estimate the sensitivity of a small peatland to natural and human impact. Our reconstructions were based on a multiproxy analysis, including the analysis of pollen, macrofossils, Chironomidae, Cladocera, and testate amoebae. Our results showed that, depending on the changes in water level, the history of peatland can be divided into three phases as follows: 1/the phase of stable natural conditions, 2/phase of weak changes, and 3/phase of significant changes in the catchment. Additionally, to better understand the importance of the size of catchment and the size of the depositional basin in the evolution of the studied peatland ecosystem, we compared data from two peatlands – large and small – located close to each other. The results of our study indicated that “size matters,” and that larger peatlands are much more resilient and resistant to rapid changes occurring in the direct catchment due to human activities, whereas small peatlands are more sensitive and perfect as archives of environmental changes.

Trends in the frequency, extent, and severity of spruce budworm outbreaks in eastern Canada

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Blais
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spruce Budworm ◽  
Forest Composition ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Clear Cutting ◽  
The Past ◽  
Spruce Stands ◽  
History Of

The history of spruce budworm (Choristoneurafumiferana (Clem.)) outbreaks for the past 200 to 300 years, for nine regions in eastern Canada, indicates that outbreaks have occurred more frequently in the 20th century than previously. Regionally, 21 outbreaks took place in the past 80 years compared with 9 in the preceding 100 years. Earlier infestations were restricted to specific regions, but in the 20th century they have coalesced and increased in size, the outbreaks of 1910, 1940, and 1970 having covered 10, 25, and 55 million ha respectively. Reasons for the increase in frequency, extent, and severity of outbreaks appear mostly attributable to changes caused by man, in the forest ecosystem. Clear-cutting of pulpwood stands, fire protection, and use of pesticides against budworm favor fir–spruce stands, rendering the forest more prone to budworm attack. The manner and degree to which each of these practices has altered forest composition is discussed. In the future, most of these practices are expected to continue and their effects could intensify, especially in regions of recent application. Other practices, including large-scale planting of white spruce, could further increase the susceptibility of forest stands. Forest management, aimed at reducing the occurrence of extensive fir–spruce stands, has been advocated as a long-term solution to the budworm problem. The implementation of this measure at a time when man's actions result in the proliferation of fir presents a most serious challenge to forest managers.

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