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Modern and fossil non-pollen palynomorphs from the Basque mountains (western Pyrenees, France): the use of coprophilous fungi to reconstruct pastoral activity

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Abstract

This paper presents results from a modern dataset of non-pollen palynomorphs and its application to a ca. 2,000 year peat record from the same area in the western Pyrenees (Basque Country, France). The modern dataset is composed of 35 surface samples (moss polsters) from a mountainous pasture-woodland landscape. Airborne fungal spores (ascospores and conidia), found dominant in the dataset, are linked to the degree of landscape openness and grazing pressure. The complete spectrum of 13 selected spore-types of dung-related Ascomycetes is positively linked with grazing pressure. However, different dung affinities between the spore-types have been identified. These are types clearly related to high grazing pressure and types with no or unclear dung indicative value. The modern dataset is used to aid interpretation of the local fossil pollen record as an independent ‘proxy’ to assess past pastoral dynamics. This study confirms the utility of modern non-pollen palynomorphs from terrestrial ecosystems in the reconstruction of historical local pastoral activities but also shows their limitation. It may be necessary to extend such study to wetland ecosystems and to investigate the spatial dimension of some fungal spores.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the PCR “Palaeoenvironment and human activities on the Basque mountain” (Ministry of Culture and SRA Aquitaine) and ATIP-CNRS “Palaeoenvironment and Pastoral Archaeology” programs headed by D. Galop. We are very grateful to Bas van Geel and André Aptroot for assistance with identifying NPPs and fungal spores, to Nicolas de Munnik for constructive comments and for having given access to his mycological library, to Mike Richardson for advice on coprophilous fungi ecology and to Sophie Chambers for having revised the English. The authors would like to thank Jean Nicolas Haas and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript.

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  1. Laboratoire de Géographie de l’Environnement (GEODE), UMR 5602 CNRS, Université Toulouse-Le Mirail, 5 allées A. Machado, 31058, Toulouse Cedex, France

    Carole Cugny, Florence Mazier & Didier Galop

  2. GeoBiosphere Science Centre, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, 22362, Lund, Sweden

    Florence Mazier

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  1. Carole Cugny
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  2. Florence Mazier
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  3. Didier Galop
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Correspondence to Carole Cugny.

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Communicated by J.N. Haas.

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Cugny, C., Mazier, F. & Galop, D. Modern and fossil non-pollen palynomorphs from the Basque mountains (western Pyrenees, France): the use of coprophilous fungi to reconstruct pastoral activity. Veget Hist Archaeobot 19, 391–408 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-010-0242-6

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