Central European vegetation and climate dynamics during the past 130 ka at F&#252;ramoos, SW Germany
Authors: Kern Oliver , Allstädt Frederik , Koutsodendris Andreas , Mächtle Bertil , Schukraft Gerd , Heiri Oliver , Pross Jörg 
Published: March 2020

&lt;p&gt;To better understand the response of Central European vegetation to rapid climate change during the late Quaternary, we have revisited the F&amp;#252;ramoos peat bog in southwestern Germany. Located between two moraine ridges of Rissian age and comprising a near-complete sedimentary sequence from late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 to 1, this peat bog represents the longest continuous pollen record from the last glacial-interglacial cycle north of the Alps. The F&amp;#252;ramoos site has been in the focus of several palynological studies in the past, showing that it presents an excellent archive to study the impact of Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events on the Central European ecosystems (e.g., M&amp;#252;ller et al., 2003). However, these previous studies were only of limited temporal resolution, which has yet precluded detailed insight into the ecosystem response to short-term climate change. We present a new, highly resolved pollen record (temporal resolution: 80&amp;#8211;200 yrs) and XRF core scanning data from F&amp;#252;ramoos spanning the past ~130 ka based on two new drill cores that consist of peat and lake sediments (Kern et al., 2019).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our results show that closed temperate forests thrived at F&amp;#252;ramoos during full interglacials characterized by &lt;em&gt;Alnus&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Corylus&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Quercus&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;Ulmus&lt;/em&gt;. The major difference between the past two interglacials is that &lt;em&gt;Fagus&lt;/em&gt; dominates during MIS 1 whereas it is mostly absent during MIS 5e. During MIS 5, the vegetation evolved from closed temperate (MIS 5e) to boreal forests (dominated by &lt;em&gt;Betula&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Picea&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;Pinus&lt;/em&gt;; MIS 5d&amp;#8211;5a). The youngest part of the last interglacial (MIS 5d&amp;#8211;5a) is marked by six distinct forests contractions (decreases in arboreal pollen by ~30&amp;#8211;50%) before the establishment of a steppe vegetation that prevailed throughout the Last Glacial (MIS 2&amp;#8211;4). In addition, seven transient increases in tree-pollen percentages document the expansion of boreal forests during MIS 2&amp;#8211;4; they are associated with synchronous increases of Si, Ti, K and Fe contents as evidenced in XRF data.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We attribute the forest contractions during MIS 5d&amp;#8211;5a to the cooling events C19&amp;#8211;C24 known from marine records in the North Atlantic and terrestrial records from southern Europe. Moreover, the forest expansions during MIS 2&amp;#8211;4 are associated with warm and moist conditions occurring during D-O events 7&amp;#8211;12, and 14. In contrast, D-O events 13 and 15&amp;#8211;19 don&amp;#8217;t leave an imprint on the vegetation although their presence is clearly documented in the XRF data. Our findings emphasize that the sediments from F&amp;#252;ramoos are exceptionally well suited to reconstruct ecosystem dynamics in Central Europe yielding unprecedented insight into the vegetation response to short-term climatic forcing north of the Alps during the past 130 kyrs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;M&amp;#252;ller, U.C., Pross, J., Bibus, E., 2003. Vegetation response to rapid climate change in Central Europe during the past 140,000 yr based on evidence from the F&amp;#252;ramoos pollen record. &lt;em&gt;Quaternary Research&lt;/em&gt; 59, 235&amp;#8211;245.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kern, O.A., Koutsodendris, A., M&amp;#228;chtle, B., et al., 2019. X-ray fluorescence core scanning yields reliable semiquantitative data on the elemental composition of peat and organic-rich lake sediments. &lt;em&gt;Science of the Total Environment&lt;/em&gt; 697, 134110.&lt;/p&gt;