Pinus nigra (European black pine) as the dominant species of the last glacial pinewoods in south‐western to central Iberia: a morphological study of modern and fossil pollen. (8th July 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Desprat, Stéphanie; Díaz Fernández, Pedro Manuel; Coulon, Tabatha; Ezzat, Leila; Pessarossi‐Langlois, Julien; Gil, Luis; Morales‐Molino, César; Sánchez Goñi, Maria Fernanda
• Is Part Of: Journal of biogeography. Volume 42:Number 10(2015:Oct.)
• Page Start: 1998
• Page End: 2009
• Publication Date: 2015-07-08
• Subjects: Biogeography -- Periodicals; 578.09
• DOI: 10.1111/jbi.12566
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-0270

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="jbi12566-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <sec id="jbi12566-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Aim</title> <p>Our aim was to discriminate different species of <italic>Pinus</italic> via pollen analysis in order to assess the responses of particular pine species to orbital and millennial‐scale climate changes, particularly during the last glacial period.</p> </sec> <sec id="jbi12566-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Location</title> <p>Modern pollen grains were collected from current pine populations along transects from the Pyrenees to southern Iberia and the Balearic Islands. Fossil pine pollen was recovered from the south‐western Iberian margin core MD95‐2042.</p> </sec> <sec id="jbi12566-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Methods</title> <p>We measured a set of morphological traits of modern pollen from the Iberian pine species <italic>Pinus nigra</italic>, <italic> P. sylvestris</italic>, <italic> P. halepensis</italic>, <italic> P. pinea</italic> and <italic>P. pinaster</italic> and of fossil pine pollen from selected samples of the last glacial period and the early to mid‐Holocene. Classification and regression tree (CART) analysis was used to establish a model from the modern dataset that discriminates pollen from the different pine species and allows identification of fossil pine pollen at the species level.</p> </sec> <sec id="jbi12566-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>The CART model was effective in separating pollen of <italic>P. nigra</italic> and <italic>P. sylvestris</italic> from that of the Mediterranean pine group (<italic>P. halepensis</italic>, <italic> P. pinea</italic> and <italic>P. pinaster</italic>). The pollen of <italic>Pinus nigra</italic> diverged from that of <italic>P. sylvestris</italic> by having a more flattened corpus. Predictions using this model suggested that fossil pine pollen is mainly from <italic>P. nigra</italic> in all the samples analysed. <italic>Pinus sylvestris</italic> was more abundant in samples from Greenland stadials than Heinrich stadials, whereas Mediterranean pines increased in samples from Greenland interstadials and during the early to mid‐Holocene.</p> </sec> <sec id="jbi12566-sec-0005" sec-type="section"> <title>Main conclusions</title> <p>Morphological parameters can be successfully used to increase the taxonomic resolution of fossil pine pollen at the species level for the highland pines (<italic>P. nigra</italic> and <italic>P. sylvestris</italic>) and at the group of species level for the Mediterranean pines. Our study indicates that <italic>P. nigra</italic> was the dominant component of the last glacial south‐western/central Iberian pinewoods, although the species composition of these woodlands varied in response to abrupt climate changes.</p> </sec> </abstract>