The vegetation was composed of grasses, sedges, and wormwood, but also included members of the rose, buttercup, and daisy family. This vegetation assemblage is not surprising for this region. We determined this estimate of climate change from macrofossils, which include sedge seeds. This means that the area was about two degrees warmer than it is today in summer, which also is consistent with results from other studies in adjacent areas of Siberia that show northward movement of the spruce and birch treeline into the tundra during the Kargian. At the end of this warm period, the mammoths probably moved southward, since few bones date to the height of the ice age on the island.
Climate change affects ecosystems today, as it has in the past.
By exploring past climate change, its magnitude and rapidity, we obtain a basis to understand how future climate change may influence our environment. Plants are directly affected by climate, and vegetation changes in turn are important for animals that feed on them. If we can discover and understand the links between climate and ecosystems of the past, we have a better chance of understanding current change and predicting the future. Late Pleistocene interstadial environment on Faddeyevskiy Island, East Siberian Sea, Russia. Arctic Alpine Res. , submitted.