Investigating Quaternary Glacial Relics in Binalod Heights and Their Effects on Site Selection and Development of Mashhad City

Accordingly, the present study is aimed at investigating quaternary climate changes in Binalod Heights. To identify glacial effects, Morphic indices, field evidence and effects, climatic evidence, and (laboratory) experimental analysis were employed. Determining the permanent snow line in the region was conducted using the Right Method and 65 cirques which are considered as much enriched feeding resources for the formation an ice cover in the region. The expansion of settlements in the region are lower than the permanent snow life is more accumulated than above the border of the permanent snow line. This issue indicates that refrigeration cells do not have the ability to create civil nuclear. Regarding quaternary climate changes and the gradual warming of the climate, the initial core of the City of Mashhad ranges from the center of the Kashf rood River to northeastern heights of Binalod. In addition, the existence of glacial cirques in heights as an important factor in feeding refrigerating conditions has been effective on the expansion of urbanization of Mashhad in the past time. Our new geomorphological mapping and landsystem reconstructions provide an important insight into the response of temperate Binalod glaciers to rapidly-warming climate

Revisiting Lake Garba Guracha, high altitude lake in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia: reconstructing Late Glacial – Holocene lake level history using δ2H/δ18O biomarker analyses

<p>Our knowledge of East African paleoclimate is largely based on marine core and paleolimnological reconstructions. Accordingly, more humid climatic conditions such as the African Humid Period (AHP) are usually associated with summer insolation-driven increased monsoonal precipitation and the movement of the Congo Air Boundary.</p><p>In order to contribute to this discussion and to reconstruct the paleoclimate of the afro-alpine Bale Mountains, Ethiopia, within the DFG Research Unit 2358 ‘The Mountain Exile Hypothesis: How humans benefited from and re-shaped African high-altitude ecosystems during Quaternary climate changes’ we re-cored Lake Garba Guracha. This site represents one of the best dated Late Glacial - Holocene continuous, high altitude (3950 m asl) paleoenvironmental archives in East Africa.<br>We investigated sugar and lipid biomarkers and their compound-specific stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition (δ<sup>18</sup>O<sub>sugar</sub> and δ<sup>2</sup>H<sub>n</sub><sub>-alkane</sub>) to infer past hydrological patterns. The δ<sup>18</sup>O<sub>sugar</sub> record reflects lake water and can thus be used to reconstruct lake evaporation history.</p><p>Our results suggest that a virtually permanent lake overflow existed from about 10 to 7 cal. ka BP, whereas the period from about 7 to 5 cal. ka BP is characterised by increased lake evaporation. We present initial results of δ<sup>18</sup>O<sub>diatom</sub> analyses and organic geochemical and XRF data that document dominant minerogenic input during the Late Glacial and increased input of almost exclusively aquatic organic matter from 11 cal. ka BP on. Reconstructed mean annual temperatures (n=20, -2.2 to 2.5°C), inferred from brGDGT-based proxies, indicate that colder conditions prevailed in the high-altitude Bale Mountain ecosystem during the Younger Dryas.</p>

Quaternary climate changes as speciation drivers in the Amazon floodplains

The role of climate as a speciation driver in the Amazon has long been discussed. Phylogeographic studies have failed to recover synchronous demographic responses across taxa, although recent evidence supports the interaction between rivers and climate in promoting speciation. Most studies, however, are biased toward upland forest organisms, while other habitats are poorly explored and could hold valuable information about major historical processes. We conducted a comparative phylogenomic analysis of floodplain forest birds to explore the effects of historical environmental changes and current connectivity on population differentiation. Our findings support a similar demographic history among species complexes, indicating that the central portion of the Amazon River basin is a suture zone for taxa isolated across the main Amazonian sub-basins. Our results also suggest that changes in the fluvial landscape induced by climate variation during the Mid- and Late Pleistocene drove population isolation, leading to diversification with subsequent secondary contact.

Glacial survival of trophically linked boreal species in northern Europe

Whether non-arctic species persisted in northern Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is highly debated. Until now, the debate has mostly focused on plants, with little consideration for other groups of organisms, e.g. the numerous plant-dependent insect species. Here, we study the late-Quaternary evolution of the European range of a boreo-montane leaf beetle, Gonioctena intermedia , which feeds exclusively on the boreal and temperate trees Prunus padus and Sorbus aucuparia . Using species distribution models, we estimated the congruence between areas of past and present suitable climate for this beetle and its host plants. Then we derived historical hypotheses from the congruent range estimates, and evaluated their compatibility with observed DNA sequence variation at five independent loci. We investigated compatibility using computer simulations of population evolution under various coalescence models. We find strong evidence for range modifications in response to late-Quaternary climate changes, and support for the presence of populations of G. intermedia in northern Europe since the beginning of the last glaciation. The presence of a co-dependent insect in the region through the LGM provides new evidence supporting the glacial survival of cold-tolerant tree species in northern Europe.