Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests
Issue Despite their rather similar climatic conditions, eastern Eurasia and northern North America are largely covered by different plant functional types (deciduous or evergreen boreal forest) composed of larch or pine, spruce and fir, respectively. I propose that these deciduous and evergreen bore...
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ftdatacite:10.25932/publishup-52405 2023-05-15T17:57:46+02:00 Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests Herzschuh, Ulrike 2021 application/pdf https://dx.doi.org/10.25932/publishup-52405 https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/52405 en eng Universität Potsdam Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY 550 Geowissenschaften article-journal Text ScholarlyArticle 2021 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-52405 2022-02-08T12:34:39Z Issue Despite their rather similar climatic conditions, eastern Eurasia and northern North America are largely covered by different plant functional types (deciduous or evergreen boreal forest) composed of larch or pine, spruce and fir, respectively. I propose that these deciduous and evergreen boreal forests represent alternative quasi-stable states, triggered by their different northern tree refugia that reflect the different environmental conditions experienced during the Last Glacial. Evidence This view is supported by palaeoecological and environmental evidence. Once established, Asian larch forests are likely to have stabilized through a complex vegetation-fire-permafrost soil-climate feedback system. Conclusion With respect to future forest developments, this implies that Asian larch forests are likely to be governed by long-term trajectories and are therefore largely resistant to natural climate variability on time-scales shorter than millennia. The effects of regional human impact and anthropogenic global warming might, however, cause certain stability thresholds to be crossed, meaning that irreversible transitions occur and resulting in marked consequences for ecosystem services on these human-relevant time-scales. : Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe; 1190 Text permafrost DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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English |
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550 Geowissenschaften |
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550 Geowissenschaften Herzschuh, Ulrike Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
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550 Geowissenschaften |
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Issue Despite their rather similar climatic conditions, eastern Eurasia and northern North America are largely covered by different plant functional types (deciduous or evergreen boreal forest) composed of larch or pine, spruce and fir, respectively. I propose that these deciduous and evergreen boreal forests represent alternative quasi-stable states, triggered by their different northern tree refugia that reflect the different environmental conditions experienced during the Last Glacial. Evidence This view is supported by palaeoecological and environmental evidence. Once established, Asian larch forests are likely to have stabilized through a complex vegetation-fire-permafrost soil-climate feedback system. Conclusion With respect to future forest developments, this implies that Asian larch forests are likely to be governed by long-term trajectories and are therefore largely resistant to natural climate variability on time-scales shorter than millennia. The effects of regional human impact and anthropogenic global warming might, however, cause certain stability thresholds to be crossed, meaning that irreversible transitions occur and resulting in marked consequences for ecosystem services on these human-relevant time-scales. : Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe; 1190 |
format |
Text |
author |
Herzschuh, Ulrike |
author_facet |
Herzschuh, Ulrike |
author_sort |
Herzschuh, Ulrike |
title |
Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
title_short |
Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
title_full |
Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
title_fullStr |
Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
title_full_unstemmed |
Legacy of the Last Glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
title_sort |
legacy of the last glacial on the present-day distribution of deciduous versus evergreen boreal forests |
publisher |
Universität Potsdam |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.25932/publishup-52405 https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/52405 |
genre |
permafrost |
genre_facet |
permafrost |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-52405 |
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1766166269259677696 |