Journal article

Ancient subalpine clonal spruces (Picea abies) – sources of postglacial vegetation history in the Swedish Scandes

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Publication Details

Author list: Öberg, Lisa

Publication year: 2011

Start page: 183

End page: 196

Number of pages: 14

ISSN: 0004-0843

View additional information: View in Web of Science


Abstract

This study addresses the long-standing issue of postglacial immigration of Picea abies (Norway spruce) into Scandinavia. Methodologically, the main focus is on megafossil tree remains (wood and cones) of spruce and other species, retrieved from the treeline ecotone (Swedish Scandes), as a tool for vegetation reconstruction. Radiocarbon dating of megafossils, preserved in the soil underneath layering clonal groups of Picea abies, provide the core data. Living spruce clones, with in some cases likely continuity back to the early Holocene (9500 cal. yr BP onwards), were found at high-elevations. First postglacial arrival to the Swedish Scandes at this stage concurs with previous megafossil inferences. This is several millennia earlier than inferred from pollen data and very soon after regional deglaciation. Persistence of some individual Picea clones since the early Holocene thermal optimum and up to the present is indicative of permanently open or semi-open spots in the high-mountain landscape, also at times when treelines in general were much higher than present. Initially, Picea clones appear to have existed in a regional no-analogue vegetation matrix of widely scattered pine (Pinus sylvestris), mountain birch (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii), Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) and thermophilic broadleaved deciduous species. In response to subsequent neoglacial cooling, the alpine character of the landscape has been enhanced through a lowered pine treeline and disappearance of larch and thermophiles. Spruces, which escaped fire and other calamities, endured due to their inherent phenotypic plasticity. Increasing climatic harshness throughout the Holocene conserved them as crippled krummholz, protected from winter stress by almost complete snow coverage. Appearance of Picea abies exclusively in the west, shortly after the deglaciation, could suggest that it has immigrated from “cryptic” ice age refugia much closer to Scandinavia than conventionally thought.


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Last updated on 2017-06-10 at 02:33