Seeing the wood for the trees. Rethinking 700 years of vegetation change in Iceland using meta-analysis of palaeoecological datasets and landscape scale model reconstructions ...

• Main Author: Koster, Willem Wilmer
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: The University of St Andrews 2023
• Subjects: Iceland; Palynology; Pollen modelling; Multiple scenario approach; Vegetation reconstruction model; Spatial bias model; Chronological quality; Pollen productivity estimates; Relative pollen productivity; Mývatn; Skálholt
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17630/sta/558; https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/28083

The colonisation of Iceland around 870 A.D. saw the influx of Norse settlers to a previously uninhabited island, resulting in large-scale ecological changes. Human impacts on the landscape vary in time and are spatially complex, making it difficult to accurately assess how Iceland was affected. To improve our knowledge about the spatial and temporal patterns of landscape changes in Iceland, this thesis uses quantitative approaches to analyse existing palaeoenvironmental data from Iceland. A meta-analysis was used to determine the spatial bias in and the temporal quality of Icelandic pollen sites. Relative pollen productivity (RPP) estimates are calculated for seven ecologically important taxa, by analysing pollen-vegetation relationships at eighteen sites. The RPPs serve as input for quantitative pollen-based reconstruction models, the Multiple Scenario Approach. Landscape reconstructions totalling 3825 km² were generated for three sites (Mývatn, Reykholtsdalur, and Skálholt) and three time slices (577-877 ...