Work package 1: Past natural beech forests reference
The composition of past-forest communities will be determined from the analysis of pollen and other palaeo-ecological data. The data sources are: 1) formal and informal data-bases of pollen analyses held in Europe (these include the European Pollen Database at Arles, France; the NORDMAP database at Lund, Sweden; and the DANPOLL database held at Copenhagen, Denmark); 2) published literature which will be systematically searched; and 3) a network of European palaeo-ecologists who will be approached to access to relevant unpublished data.
Palaeo-ecological data based on pollen and, where available, plant macrofossils, will document the spread of beech in Europe during the post-glacial and provide information about former ground vegetation and fire regimes (from charcoal deposits). They will also record other tree species with which beech has been associated in the past and reveal whether these associations show any temporal or spatial patterns in Europe.
Past canopy dynamics, forest openness, browsing and associated biodiversity can be reconstructed. Previously investigated sites will be analysed, but some supplementary data on charcoal deposits will be collected (re-examination of original slides from the sites). Stand-scale pollen data from selected herbaceous species will be used in a quantitative manner to estimate forest openness and its dynamics using a newly published method (Sugita et al. 1999).
Published information on past human usage of beech forests will be collected (literature review and networking). For selected regions, the spread of beech will be compared with detailed archaeological and historical data. The data from all three tasks will be summarised, evaluated for signs of anthropogenic indicators, and the implications identified. The detailed stand-scale studies will be made on 16 sites from southern Sweden, c. 40 sites from Denmark, and c. 20 others from Britain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Some research is needed to determine the precise number of such sites that have already been studied. Past canopy dynamics, forest openness, browsing and associated biodiversity can be reconstructed by these data by using new analytical techniques.
Work-package leader:
Richard Bradshaw, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Dept. Environmental History and Climate, Thoravej 8, DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, DENMARK, Fax (+45) 3814 2050, phone: (+45) 3814 2350, e-mail:
Jens Emborg, - last update:2 March 2012