Title Terrestrial Plant Microfossils in Paleoenvironmental Studies, Pollen

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Title Terrestrial Plant Microfossils in Paleoenvironmental Studies, Pollen ORE Open Research Exeter TITLE Terrestrial plant microfossils in palaeoenvironmental studies, pollen, microcharcoal and phytolith. Towards a comprehensive understanding of vegetation, fire and climate changes over the past one million years AUTHORS DANIAU, A-L; Desprat, S; Davis, B; et al. JOURNAL Revue de Micropaléontologie DEPOSITED IN ORE 11 March 2019 This version available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/36362 COPYRIGHT AND REUSE Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies. A NOTE ON VERSIONS The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication 1 Title 2 Terrestrial plant microfossils in paleoenvironmental studies, pollen, microcharcoal and 3 phytolith. Towards a comprehensive understanding of vegetation, fire and climate changes 4 over the past one million years. 5 6 Authors 7 Anne-Laure Daniau1*, Stéphanie Desprat2, 3, Julie C. Aleman4,5, Laurent Bremond2,6, Basil 8 Davis7, William Fletcher8, Jennifer R. Marlon9, Laurent Marquer10, Vincent Montade11, César 9 Morales Del Molino12, Filipa Naughton13, 14, Damien Rius15, Dunia H. Urrego16 10 11 Equal contribution: Anne-Laure Daniau, Stéphanie Desprat 12 13 *Corresponding author: [email protected] 14 15 Affiliations 16 1. Université de Bordeaux, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 17 Environnements et Paléoenvironnements Océaniques et Continentaux (EPOC), Unité Mixte 18 de Recherche (UMR) 5805, F-33615 Pessac, France 19 2. École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), PSL Research University, Paris, France 20 3. EPOC UMR 5805, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac, France 21 4. Département de Géographie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville 22 Montréal (Qc) H3C 3J7 Canada, 23 5. Laboratoire de Foresterie des Régions tropicales et subtropicales, Gembloux Agro-Bio 24 Tech, Université de Liège, Passage des Déportés 2, B-5030 Gembloux, Belgique 1 25 6. Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution - Montpellier, UMR 5554 CNRS-IRD-Université 26 Montpellier-EPHE, Montpellier, France 27 7. Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics IDYST, Faculté des Géosciences et l’Environnement, 28 University of Lausanne, Batiment Géopolis, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland 29 7. Department of Geography, School of Environment, Education and Development, 30 University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK 31 9. School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511 32 USA 33 10. Research Group for Terrestrial Palaeoclimates, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, 34 Hahn-Meitner-Weg 1, 55128 Mainz (Germany) 35 11. University of Goettingen - Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics - Albrecht- 36 von-Haller Institute for Plant Sciences, Wilhelm-Weber-Str. 2a, 37073 Goettingen, Germany 37 12. Institute of Plant Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University 38 of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, CH-3013, Bern, Switzerland 39 13. Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere Institute (IPMA), Rua Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho 6, 40 1495-006 Lisboa, Portugal 41 14. Center of Marine Sciences (CCMAR), Algarve University, Campus de Gambelas 8005 - 42 139 Faro, Portugal 43 15. Université de Franche-Comté, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 44 Laboratoire Chrono-Environnement, Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 6249, 16 route de 45 Gray, 25030 Besançon Cedex, France 46 16. Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Amory 47 Building B302, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, United Kingdom 48 49 2 50 Type of article 51 Invited review 52 53 To be submitted to: 54 Revue de Micropaléontologie - Special issue numéro 60 ème anniversaire 55 56 Keywords : 57 Pollen; microcharcoal; phytolith; terrestrial and marine sedimentary archives; vegetation; 58 fire; Middle Pleistocene; last glacial period; Holocene 59 60 Abstract 61 Earth has experienced large changes in global and regional climates over the past one million 62 years. Understanding processes and feedbacks that control those past environmental changes 63 is of great interest for better understanding the nature, direction and magnitude of current 64 climate change, its effect on life, and on the physical, biological and chemical processes and 65 ecosystem services important for human well-being. Microfossils from terrestrial plants, 66 pollen, microcharcoal and phytolith preserved in terrestrial and marine sedimentary archives 67 are particularly useful tools to document changes in vegetation, fire and land climate. They 68 are well preserved in a variety of depositional environments and provide quantitative 69 reconstructions of past land cover and climate. Those microfossil data are widely available 70 from public archives, and their spatial coverage includes almost all regions on Earth, 71 including both high and low latitudes and altitudes. Here, i) we review the laboratory 72 procedures used to extract those microfossils from the sediment for microscopic observations 73 and the qualitative and quantitative information they provide, ii) we highlight the importance 74 of regional and global databases for large-scale syntheses of environmental changes, and iii) 3 75 we review the application of terrestrial plant microfossil records in paleoclimatology and 76 paleoecology using key examples from specific regions and past periods. 77 78 1. Introduction 79 80 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by the 81 World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment 82 Programme (UNEP) to provide an assessment of the understanding of all aspects of any 83 climate change over time, whether driven by natural variability or by human activity (IPCC, 84 2001). Thirty years later, the scientific consensus is that current climate change, an average 85 global warming, is anthropogenically-driven, rapid and of large magnitude. Population’s 86 daily life is already or will be affected and the “climate action” is now targeted as one of the 87 Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. 88 Over the last decades our perception of our environment radically changed. The curiosity of 89 scientists observing and trying to understand past climate variability enabled contextualizing 90 the current climate change within a long-term perspective. Over the geological times, the 91 Earth experienced large changes in global and regional climates. Multi-millennial time scale 92 changes in orbital and greenhouse gas forcings during the Quaternary, for example, have 93 produced several glacial and interglacial periods of different length and magnitudes (Hays et 94 al., 1976; Masson-Delmotte et al., 2010; Milankovitch, 1941; Past Interglacials Working 95 Group of PAGES, 2016; Yin and Berger, 2012). The current interglacial period, the 96 Holocene, is part of the 100-ky world established since the Middle Pleistocene transition 97 (1.25-0.7 Ma) and characterized by large amplitude glacial-interglacial oscillations occurring 98 with a periodicity of 100 kyr (Clark et al., 2006). The Earth climate also experienced decadal 99 to millennial-scale variability (e.g. Fleitmann et al., 2009; Johnsen et al., 1992; Jouzel et al., 4 100 2007; Loulergue et al., 2008; McManus et al., 1999; Sánchez Goñi et al., 1999). Observing, 101 modeling, and understanding processes and feedbacks that control those past environmental 102 changes are of critical importance for a better understanding of the nature, direction and 103 magnitude of current climate change, its effect on life, and on the physical, biological, and 104 chemical processes and ecosystem services essential for human well-being. 105 Climate on Earth is conceptualized as a system where different spheres, i.e. the atmosphere, 106 cryosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, respond to external forcings, such as 107 astronomical and anthropogenic forcing (Ruddiman, 2001). The anthroposphere is sometimes 108 considered as a sphere of the climate system, and not as an external forcing (Cornell et al., 109 2012). The different spheres interact and depend on one another as an interconnected Earth 110 system. Paleoclimate studies not only aim at reconstructing the response of the atmosphere, 111 but also of all different spheres as well as their interactions and related feedback mechanisms 112 modulating climate changes. Climate models are necessarily now designed to include 113 interactive coupled components that extend to all of these aspects of the Earth system. 114 Vegetation, which is a major element of the biosphere, develops in response to climate and 115 soil characteristics and plays an important role in the climate system. It is involved in 116 different vital ecosystem services like nutrient and food production, mitigation of climate 117 change, and soil and fresh water production and conservation (Faucon et al., 2017). 118 Terrestrial plants act as a carbon sink and can limit the warming of atmospheric and ocean 119 temperature by removing carbon from the atmosphere during the photosynthesis. Through the 120 evapotranspiration process, plants also increase water vapor locally in the atmosphere, 121 enhancing precipitation and cloud cover, which reinforces cooling. Changes in land cover 122 further modify the albedo and act as a positive (warming) or negative (cooling) radiative 123 forcing. Vegetation is therefore an integral part of the biogeochemical- and -physical 124 processes between the land surface and the
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