Quantitative reconstructions of late Quaternary vegetation, temperature and atmospheric precipitation variability in eastern Siberia: Evaluation of ecosystem stability/instability during episodes of rapid climate change
Final Report Abstract
The scientific aim of this project was a chronologically well-constrained high-resolution reconstruction of the late Quaternary vegetation and climate fluctuations of eastern Siberia, as basis for the development of future environmental scenarios for this sensitive and economically important region of Eurasia with extreme continental climate and boreal forest vegetation. The vegetation development was reconstructed on the basis of pollen analysis in combination with n-alkanes (testate amoebae ongoing) from lake sediments and peat profiles for last glacial and Holocene periods. The regional focus was laid on southern and central Yakutia, with the Lake Kotokel from the Baikal Region and Lake Billyakh core sediments from the western Verkhoyansk Mountains serving as key palaeoenvironmental archives, respectively. The analytical and reconstruction results valuably contribute to a better understanding of environmental dynamics and ecosystem stability/instability in the study region and are an important segment in the regional reconstructions of late Quaternary vegetation and climate in northern and central Asia, including north-eastern Siberia and the Lake Baikal region. The performed comparison of these results with climate and vegetation model experiments for the interglacials MIS 5 and MIS 11 showed general agreement but pointed out further research questions concerning, e.g., disagreement between precipitation reconstruction and modelling results.
Publications
- 2013. Last glacial vegetation reconstructions in the extreme-continental eastern Asia: Potentials of pollen and n-alkane biomarker analyses. Quaternary International 290-291, 253-263
P.E. Tarasov, S. Müller, M. Zech, D. Andreeva, B. Diekmann, C. Leipe
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2012.04.007) - 2013. River flooding as a driver of polygon dynamics: modern vegetation data and millennial peat record from the Anabar River lowlands (Arctic Siberia). Biogeoscience 10, 5703-5728
R. Zibulski, U. Herzschuh, L.A. Pestryakova, J. Wolter, S. Müller, S. Wetterich, L. Schirrmeister, F. Tiang
(See online at https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-5703-2013) - 2013. Vegetation dynamics around Lake Baikal since the middle Holocene reconstructed from the pollen and botanical composition analyses of peat sediments: Implications for paleoclimatic and archeological research. Quaternary International 190-191, 35-45
E.V. Bezrukova, S. Hildebrandt, P.P. Letunova, E.V. Ivanov, L.A. Orlova, S. Müller, P.E. Tarasov
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2012.10.043) - 2014. Last Interglacial vegetation in northern Asia: Model simulations and comparison with pollen-based reconstructions. Quaternary International, published online
M. Bergemann, S. Müller
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2013.10.041) - 2014. Stable vegetation and environmental conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum: New results from Lake Kotokel (Lake Baikal region, southern Siberia, Russia). Quaternary International, published online
S. Müller, P.E. Tarasov, P. Hoelzmann, E.V. Bezrukova, A. Kossler, S.K. Krivonogov
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2013.12.012) - 2014. The climate and vegetation of Marine Isotope Stage 11 - model results and proxy-based reconstructions at global and regional scale. Quaternary International, published online
T. Kleinen, S. Hildebrandt, M. Prange, R. Rachmayani, S., Müller, E. Bezrukova, V. Brovkin, P. Tarasov
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2013.12.028) - 2015. Comparison of climate and carbon cycle dynamics during late Quaternary interglacials (COIN). In: M. Schulz, A. Paul (Eds.) Integrated Analysis of Interglacial Climate Dynamics (INTERDYNAMIC)
T. Kleinen, E. Bezrukova, V. Brovkin, H. Fischer, S. Hildebrandt, S. Müller, M. Prange, R. Rachmayani, J. Schmitt, R. Schneider, M. Schulz, P. Tarasov
