Millennial climatic fluctuations are key to the structure of last glacial ecosystems

Huntley, Brian; Allen, Judy R.M.; Collingham, Yvonne C.; Hickler, Thomas; Lister, Adrian M.; Singarayer, Joy; Stuart, Antony J.; Sykes, Martin; Valdes, Paul J.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061963

Millennial climatic fluctuations are key to the structure of last glacial ecosystems

Huntley, Brian; Allen, Judy R.M.; Collingham, Yvonne C.; Hickler, Thomas; Lister, Adrian M.; Singarayer, Joy; Stuart, Antony J.; Sykes, Martin; Valdes, Paul J.

Authors

Brian Huntley

Dr Judith Allen j.r.m.allen@durham.ac.uk
Academic Visitor

Yvonne C. Collingham

Thomas Hickler

Adrian M. Lister

Joy Singarayer

Antony J. Stuart

Martin Sykes

Paul J. Valdes

Abstract

Whereas fossil evidence indicates extensive treeless vegetation and diverse grazing megafauna in Europe and northern Asia during the last glacial, experiments combining vegetation models and climate models have to-date simulated widespread persistence of trees. Resolving this conflict is key to understanding both last glacial ecosystems and extinction of most of the mega-herbivores. Using a dynamic vegetation model (DVM) we explored the implications of the differing climatic conditions generated by a general circulation model (GCM) in “normal” and “hosing” experiments. Whilst the former approximate interstadial conditions, the latter, designed to mimic Heinrich Events, approximate stadial conditions. The “hosing” experiments gave simulated European vegetation much closer in composition to that inferred from fossil evidence than did the “normal” experiments. Given the short duration of interstadials, and the rate at which forest cover expanded during the late-glacial and early Holocene, our results demonstrate the importance of millennial variability in determining the character of last glacial ecosystems.

Citation

Huntley, B., Allen, J. R., Collingham, Y. C., Hickler, T., Lister, A. M., Singarayer, J., …Valdes, P. J. (2013). Millennial climatic fluctuations are key to the structure of last glacial ecosystems. PLoS ONE, 8(4), Article e61963. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061963

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	2013-04
Deposit Date	May 10, 2013
Publicly Available Date	May 10, 2013
Journal	PLoS ONE
Publisher	Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	8
Issue	4
Article Number	e61963
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061963

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Copyright Statement
Copyright: © 2013 Huntley et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.