Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Vegetation responses to past climatic variation

  • Published:
Vegetatio Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Vegetation responses to climatic change can be studied retrospectively by utilizing the Quaternary fossil record. There has been controversy over the extent to which major changes in vegetation patterns at the continental scale lag behind the climatic changes that drive them, and to what extent vegetation can ever be said to be in equilibrium with climate. The equilibrium question has no single answer. The predominant mode of vegetation response to climatic change depends on the space and time frame and resolution of the data set in which the response is observed.

Vegetation (as observed on particular space and time scales) can be in dynamic equilibrium with climate if its response time is sufficiently fast in relation to the rate of climatic change to which it is observed to be responding. Several processes can be involved in the response: successional, migrational, edaphic, and evolutionary. Successional response times can be deduced from forest succession models. The other processes are less well understood and different ideas exist concerning their rates. According to one hypothesis, migrational lags caused delays of thousands of years in the postglacial dynamics of forest composition. The alternative hypothesis explains these changes as dynamic equilibrium responses to changes in climatic seasonality and climatic anomaly patterns. Neither hypothesis need be universally true; gradient analysis and forest succession models are among the techniques that can be used in inferential tests of these hypotheses for particular space-time regions.

Dynamic equilibrium may often be a reasonable approximation for the responses of the broadest continental-scale forest patterns to orbitally induced climatic changes. But as spatial and temporal frames of observation are diminished and resolution increased, biotic processes must eventually come to dominate. At sufficiently fine scales the main observable phenomena are successional responses to natural disturbance events. The late-Quaternary record of vegetation change allows a choice of observation scales and thus provides a continuum of possibilities for study, ranging from long-term dynamic bioclimatology to more conventional vegetation dynamics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams W. T., 1981. Population genetics and gene conservation in Pacific northwest conifers. In: G. R. Scudder & J. L. Reveal (eds), Evolution Today, pp. 401–415. Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen T. F. H. & Starr T. B., 1982. Hierarchy: perspectives for ecological complexity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 310 pp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andersen S. T., 1966. Interglacial vegetational succession and lake development in Denmark. Palaeobotanist 15: 117–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartlein P. J., Prentice I. C. & WebbJr T., 1986. Climatic response surfaces from pollen data for some eastern North American taxa. J. Biogegr. 13: 35–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beardmore J. A., 1983. Extinction, survival, and genetic variation. In: C. M. Schonewald-Cox et al. (eds), Genetics and conservation, pp. 125–151. Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernabo J. C. & WebbIII T., 1977. Changing patterns in the Holocene pollen record of northeastern North America: a mapped summary. Quat. Res. 8: 64–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett K. D., 1983. Postglacial population expansion of forest trees in Norfolk, UK. Nature 303: 164–167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Botkin D. B., Janak J. F. & Wallis J. R., 1972. Some ecological consequences of a computer model of forest growth. J. Ecol. 60: 849–872.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brubaker L. B., 1981. Long-term forest dynamics. In: D. C. West, H. H. Shugart, & D. B. Botkin (eds), Forest succession: concepts and application, pp. 95–106. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brubaker L. B., 1986. Responses of tree populations to climatic change. Vegetatio 67: 119–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell J. J. N., 1982. Pears and persimmons: A comparison of temperate forests in Europe and eastern North America. Vegetatio 49: 85–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark W. C., 1985. Scales of climate impacts. Climatic Change 7: 5–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Critchfield, W. B., 1984. Impact of the Pleistocene on the genetic structure of North American conifers. In: R. M. Lanner (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th North American Forest Biology Workshop, pp. 70–118.

  • Cwynar L. C., 1978. Recent history of fires and vegetation from laminated sediment of Greenleaf Lake, Algonquin Park, Ontario. Can. J. Bot. 56: 10–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., 1976. Pleistocene biogeography of temperate deciduous forests. Geoscience and Man 13: 13–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., 1978. Climatic interpretation of pollen in Quaternary sediments. In: D. Walker & J. C. Guppy (eds), Biology and Quaternary environments, pp. 35–51. Australian Academy of Science, Canberra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., 1981. Quaternary history and the stability of forest communities. In: D. C. West, H. H. Shugart & D. B. Botkin (eds), Forest succession: concepts and application, pp. 132–153. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., 1983a. Holocene vegetational history of the eastern United States. In: H. E. WrightJr (ed.) Late-Quaternary environments of the United States. Vol. 2: The Holocene, pp. 166–181. University of Minnesota Press, Mineapolis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., 1983b. Quaternary history of deciduous forests of eastern North America and Europe. Ann. Missouri Bot. Garden 70: 550–563.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B. & Botkin D. B., 1985. Sensitivity of cool-temperate forests and their fossil pollen record to rapid temperature change. Quat. Res. 23: 327–340.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., Spear R. W. & Shane L. C. K., 1980. Holocene climate of New England. Quat. Res. 14: 240–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis M. B., Woods K., Webb S. L. & Futyma R. P., 1986. Dispersal versus climate: expansion of Fagus and Tsuga into the Upper Great Lakes region. Vegetatio 67: 93–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deevey E. S., 1969. Coaxing history to conduct experiments. BioScience 19: 40–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt H. R., Delcourt P. A. & WebbIII T., 1983. Dynamic plant ecology: the spectrum of vegetational change in space and time. Quat. Sci. Rev. 1: 153–175.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt P. A. & Delcourt H. R., 1983. Late-Quaternary vegetational dynamics and community stability reconsidered. Quat. Res. 19: 265–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fagerström T. & Ågren G. I., 1979. Theory for coexistence of species differing in regeneration properties. Oikos 33: 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankel O. H. & Soulé M. E., 1982. Conservation and evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franklin J. F. & Hemstrom M. A., 1981. Aspects of succession in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. In: D. C. West, H. H. Shugart & D. B. Botkin (eds), Forest succession: concepts and application, pp. 212–229. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaudreau D. C., 1984. Features of Holocene plant population dynamics inferred from mapped pollen data from northeastern North America. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. 65: 211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Göbber F. & Seelig F. F., 1975. Conditions for the application of the steady-state approximation to systems of differential equations. J. Math. Biol. 2: 79–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green D. G., 1981. Time series and postglacial forest ecology. Quat. Res. 15: 265–277.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green D. G., 1982. Fire and stability in the postglacial forests of southwest Nova Scotia. J. Biogeogr. 9: 29–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm E. C., 1983. Chronology and dynamics of vegetation change in the prairie-woodland region of southern Minnesota, U.S.A. New Phytol. 93: 311–350.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm E. C., 1984. Fire and other factors controlling the Big Woods vegetation of Minnesota in the mid-nineteenth century. Ecol. Monogr. 54: 291–311.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howe S. E. & WebbIII T., 1983. Calibrating pollen data in climatic terms: improving the methods. Quat. Sci. Rev. 2: 17–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntley B. & Birks H. J. B., 1983. An atlas of past and present pollen maps for Europe 0–13000 years ago. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hustich I., 1958. On the recent expansion of the Scotch pine in northern Europe. Fennia 82(3): 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iversen J., 1958. The bearing of glacial and interglacial epochs on the formation and extinction of plant taxa. Upps. Univ. Årsskr. 6: 210–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iversen J., 1960. Problems of the early post-glacial forest development in Denmark. Danmarks Geol. Unders. IV, 4(3): 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iversen J., 1969. Retrogressive development of a forest ecosystem demonstrated by pollen diagrams from fossil mor. Oikos Suppl. 12: 35–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • JacobsonJr. G. L. & Bradshaw R. H. W., 1981. The selection of sites for paleovegetational studies. Quat. Res. 16: 80–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson W. C., Sharpe D. M., De Angelis D. L., Fields D. E. & Olson R. J., 1981. Modeling seed dispersal and forest island dynamics. In: R. L. Burgess & D. M. Sharpe (eds), Forest island dynamics in man-dominated landscapes, pp. 215–239. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones D. D., 1977. Catastrophe theory applied to ecological systems. Simulation 29: 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ledig F. T. & Little S., 1979. Pitch pine (Pinus rigida Mill.): Ecology physiology, and genetics. In: R. T. T. Forman (ed.), Pine barrens: ecosystems and landscape. Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levin S. A., 1976. Spatial patterning and the structure of ecological communities. In: S. A. Levin (ed.) Some mathematical questions in biology VII. Lectures on mathematics in the life sciences 8: 1–35. American Mathematical Society, Providence.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levins R., 1974. The qualitative analysis of partially specified systems. Ann. New York Acad. Sci. 231: 123–138.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacArthur R. H., 1972. Geographical ecology. Harper & Row, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mack R. N., 1985. Evaluating factors that affect the rate of migrations. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. 66: 222.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacMahon J. A., 1981. Successional processes: comparisons among biomes with special reference to probable roles of and influences on animals. In: D. C. West, H. H. Shugart & D. B. Botkin (eds), Forest succession: concepts and application, pp. 277–304. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moe D., 1970. The post-glacial immigration of Picea abies into Fennoscandia. Bot. Notiser 123: 61–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neilson R. P. & Wullstein L. H., 1983. Biogeography of two southwest American oaks in relation to atmospheric dynamics. J. Biogeogr. 10: 275–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peet R. K., 1978. Latitudinal variation in southern Rocky Mountain forests. J. Biogeogr. 5: 275–289.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pennington W. (Mrs T. G. Tutin), 1986. Lags in adjustment of vegetation to climate caused by the pace of soil development. Vegetatio 67: 105–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, G. M., 1983. Holocene vegetation and climate in the western USSR. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prentice I. C., 1983. Postglacial climatic change: vegetation dynamics and the pollen record. Progr. Phys. Geogr. 7: 273–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prentice I. C., 1985. Pollen representation, source area, and basin size: Toward a unified theory of pollen analysis. Quat. Res. 23: 76–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prentice, I. C., 1986. Some concepts and objectives of forest dynamics research. IUFRO Regional Workshop, Wageningen, in press.

  • Ritchie J. C., 1986. Climate change and vegetation response. Vegetatio 67: 65–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shugart H. H., 1984. A theory of forest dynamics. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shugart H. H. & Hett J. M., 1973. Succession: similarities of species turnover rates. Science 180: 1379–1381.

    Google Scholar 

  • ShugartJr. H. H. & West D. C., 1977. Development of an Appalachian deciduous forest succession model and its application to assessment of the impact of chestnut blight. J. Envir. Managem. 5: 161–179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shugart H. H., West D. C. & Emanuel W. R., 1981. Patterns and dynamics of forests: an application of simulation models. In: D. C. West, H. H. Shugart & D. B. Botkin (eds), Forest succession: concepts and application, pp. 74–94. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith A. G., 1965. Problems of inertia and threshold related to post-glacial habitat changes. Proc. Roy. Soc. B 161: 331–342.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon A. M. & Shugart H. H., 1984. Integrating forest stand simulations with paleoecological records to examine long-term forest dynamics. In: G. I. Ågren (ed.), State and change of forest ecosystems-indicators in current research, pp. 333–356. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon A. M. & Tharp M. L., 1985. Simulation experiments with late quaternary carbon storage in mid-latitude forest communities. In: E. T. Sundquist & W. S. Broecker (eds), The carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2: natural variations Archean to present, pp. 235–250. Geophysical Monograph 32, American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon A. M. & WebbIII T., 1985. Computer-aided reconstruction of Late-Quaternary landscape dynamics. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 16: 63–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon A. M., West D. C. & Solomon J. A., 1981. Simulating the role of climate change and species immigration in forest succession. In: D. C. West, H. H. Shugart & D. B. Botkin (eds), Forest succession: concepts and application, pp. 154–177. Springer, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon A. M., Delcourt H. R., West D. C. & Blasing T. J., 1980. Testing a simulation model for reconstruction of prehistoric forest-stand dynamics. Quat. Res. 14: 275–293.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spaulding, W. G., 1984. The last glacial-interglacial climatic cycle: its effects on woodlands and forests in the American West. In: R. M. Lanner (ed.), Proc. 8th North Amer. For. Biol. Workshop, pp. 42–69.

  • Spaulding W. G., Leopold E. B. & van Devender T. R., 1983. Late Wisconsin paleoecology of the American Southwest. In: S. C. Porter (ed.), Late-Quaternary environments of the United States. Vol. 1: The Late Pleistocene, pp. 259–293. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swain A. M., 1978. Environmental changes during the past 2000 years in north-central Wisconsin: analysis of pollen, charcoal and seeds from varved lake sediments. Quat. Res. 10: 55–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsukada M., 1982. Cryptomeria japonica: glacial refugia and late-glacial and post-glacial migration. Ecology 63: 1091–1105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ulrich B., 1983. A concept of forest ecosystem stability and of acid deposition as driving force for destabilization. In: B. Ulrich & J. Pankrath (eds), Effects of accumulation of air pollutants in forest ecosystems, pp. 1–29. D. Reidel, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Usher M. B., 1979. Markovian approaches to ecological succession. J. Anim. Ecol. 48: 413–426.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watts W. A., 1973. Rates of change and stability in vegetation in the perspective of long periods of time. In: H. J. B. Birks & R. G. West (eds), Quaternary plant ecology, pp. 195–206. Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • WebbIII T., 1982. Tem past 11000 years of vegetational change in eatern North America. BioScience 31: 501–506.

    Google Scholar 

  • WebbIII T., 1982. Temporal resolution in Holocene pollen data. Third North American Paleontological Convention Procedings 2: 569–571.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb III, T., 1985. A global paleoclimatic data base for 6000 yr B.P. U.S. Department of Energy TR 018, Washington, D.C.

  • WebbIII T., 1986. Is vegetation in equilibrium with climate? How to interpret late-Quaternary pollen data. Vegetatio 67: 75–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • WebbIII T. & Bryson R. A., 1972. Late- and postglacial climatic change in the northern midwest, USA: quantitative estimates derived from fossil pollen spectra by multivariate statistical analysis. Quat. Res. 2: 70–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb III, T., Cushing, E. J. & Wright Jr, H. E., 1983. Holocene changes in the vegetation of the midwest. In H. E. Wright Jr (ed.), Late Quaternary environments of the United States. Volume 2: The Holocene, pp. 142–165.

  • WebbIII T., Laseski R. A. & Bernabo J. C., 1978. Sensing vegetational patterns with pollen data: choosing the data. Ecology 59: 1151–1163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wells P. V., 1976. Macrofossil analysis of woodrat (Neotoma) middens as a key to the Quaternary vegetational history of arid America. Quat. Res. 6: 223–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • West R. G., 1980. Pleistocene forest history in East Anglia. New Phytol. 85: 571–622.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whittaker R. H. & Levin S. A., 1977. The role of mosaic phenomena in natural communities. Theor. Popul. Biol. 12: 117–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods K. D. & Davis M. B., 1982. Sensitivity of Michigan pollen diagrams to Little Ice Age climatic change. AMQUA Abstracts 7: 181.

    Google Scholar 

  • WrightJr H. E., 1984. Sensitivity and response time of natural systems to climate change in the Late Quaternary. Quat. Sci. Rev. 3: 91–131.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instiute of Ecological Botany, Uppsala University, Box 559, S-751 22, Uppsala, Sweden

    I. Colin Prentice

Authors
  1. I. Colin Prentice
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

I thank Margaret Davis, Honor Prentice, Jim Ritchie, Al Solomon, Geoff Spaulding and Tom Webb for their reviews of earlier drafts. Research supported by a US Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Research Division, grant to Brown University and a Swedish Natural Science Research Council grant to the project SlsSimulation of Natural Forest Dynamics’.

I thank Margaret Davis, Honor Prentice, Jim Ritchie, Al Solomon, Geoff Spaulding and Tom Webb for their reviews of earlier drafts. Research supported by a US Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Research Division, grant to Brown University and a Swedish Natural Science Research Council grant to the project SlsSimulation of Natural Forest Dynamics’.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Colin Prentice, I. Vegetation responses to past climatic variation. Vegetatio 67, 131–141 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00037363

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00037363

Keywords

Search

Navigation