The role of human disturbance in Late Holocene vegetation changes on Kullaberg, southern Sweden |
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Authors: | Leif Björkman |
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Institution: | Department of Geology, Quaternary Geology, Lund University, Tornav?gen 13, S223 63 Lund, Sweden, e-mail: leif.bjorkman@geol.lu.se, SE
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Abstract: | A pollen record from a small peatland located on Kullaberg in northwestern Sk?ne, southern Sweden, revealed that grazing
pressure might have been the major disturbance agent controlling the vegetation, at least from ca. 1500 B. C. until the latter
part of the nineteenth century. The pollen data also indicate a step-by-step increase in grazing pressure, expressed as a
marked increase in non-arboreal pollen representation at ca. 1500 B. C., A. D. 650 and A. D. 1650. The increase at A. D. 650
probably indicates a more regular and intensive use of the area, resulting in a forest structure that was much more open than
earlier, together with an expansion of Fagus, which rapidly replaced Quercus as the local forest dominant. At about this time the first patches of heath vegetation originated, but they probably only
covered a small part of Kullaberg. Larger areas with an intensively grazed Calluna heath, as shown by eighteenth century maps, probably evolved around ca. A. D. 1650, when much of Kullaberg seems to have
been deliberately deforested.
Received February 20, 2001 / Accepted September 12, 2001 |
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Keywords: | : Pollen analysis – Forest history – Human impact – Grazing – Southern Sweden |
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