DOI: 10.25921/b8t5-cr69
title: NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Stazki Bog, Poland 1000 Year Testate Amoeba DWT Reconstruction

description: The Baltic coast of Northern Poland is an interesting region for palaeoclimatic studies because of the mixed oceanic and continental climatic influences and the fact that the dominance of one or the other of these two influences might have changed over time. Also, unlike many more intensively studied regions of Europe, human impact in the region was rather limited until the 19th century. We present a 1200-year high-resolution record from Stazki mire, an ombrotrophic bog located 35 km from the Baltic Sea coast. Using testate amoebae, stable isotopes (d13C) of Sphagnum stems, pollen, plant macrofossils and dendroecological analyses, our aims were to: 1) reconstruct the last millennium palaeoenvironment in the study site and its surroundings, 2) identify the major wet-dry shifts, 3) determine if those events correlate with climate change and human impact, 4) assess the resilience of the Baltic bog ecosystem following human impact, and 5) compare the palaeo-moisture signal from the Baltic coast with records from more oceanic regions. Two dry periods are inferred at AD 1100-1500 and 1650-1900 (-2005). The first dry shift is probably climate-driven as pollen record shows little evidence of human indicators. The second dry shift can be related to local peat exploitation of the mire. In the 20th century additional limited drainage took place and since ca. AD 1950 the mire has been recovering. From 1500 AD onwards all proxies indicate wetter condition. The beginning of this wet shift occurred during the Little Ice Age and may therefore be a climatic signal. The macrofossil data show that Sphagnum fuscum dominated the pristine mire vegetation but then declined and finally disappeared at ca. AD 1900. This pattern is comparable with the timing of extinction of Sphagnum austinii (= Sphagnum imbricatum) in the UK. This study illustrates the value of high-resolution multi-proxy studies of peat archives to assess the magnitude of anthropogenic land-use changes. This study presents the first direct comparison of testate amoebae and stable isotope data from the same core. The two proxies correlate significantly throughout the record and most strongly for the latter part of the record when most of the variability was recorded.
description: Depth to Water Table (DWT) reconstruction for Stazki Bog, Poland 
based on Testate Amoeba. Two time series are included. SL1 is the
published data (Lamentowicz et al., 2008a).  This peat core has 
a 400 years hiatus.  Also provided is data from peat core SL2, 
which is continuous and not disturbed, but unpublished. It was 
analysed with the same methods as peat core SL1.

The study site is a Baltic bog located in northern Poland, 
ca 35 km from the Baltic sea coast, in the Kaszuby Lakeland, 
near the highest point (214.6 m a.s.l.) of a moraine plateau. 

All calculations are based on percentage of each species of 
Testate Amoeba in a sample (See Booth et al., 2010).  
Age model is from (Lamentowicz et al., 2008a). 

Depth to Water Table (DWT) is dependent on vegetation season 
temperature and summer water deficit, providing a mixed 
temperature and precipitation signal. 

Water table reconstruction based on the transfer function 
of Lamentowicz et al., 2008b.