Biodiversity responses to Lateglacial climate change in the subdecadally-resolved record of Lake Hämelsee (Germany)

authored by

S. Engels, C. S. Lane, W. Z. Hoek, I. Baneschi, A. Bouwman, E. Brogan, C. Bronk Ramsey, J. Collins, R. de Bruijn, A. Haliuc, O. Heiri, K. Hubay, G. Jones, V. Jones, A. Laug, J. Merkt, F. Muschitiello, T. Peters, F. Peterse, A. Pueschel, R. A. Staff, A. ter Schure, F. Turner, V. van den Bos, F. Wagner-Cremer, Meike Müller

Abstract

Anthropogenically-driven climate warming and land use change are the main causes of an ongoing decrease in global biodiversity. It is unclear how ecosystems, particularly freshwater habitats, will respond to such continuous and potentially intensifying disruptions. Here we analyse how different components of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems responded to natural climate change during the Lateglacial. By applying a range of analytical techniques (sedimentology, palaeoecology, geochemistry) to the well-dated sediment archive from Lake Hämelsee (Germany), we show evidence for vegetation development, landscape dynamics and aquatic ecosystem change typical for northwest Europe during the Lateglacial. By particularly focussing on periods of abrupt climate change, we determine the timing and duration of changes in biodiversity in response to external forcing. We show that onsets of changes in biodiversity indicators (e.g. diatom composition, Pediastrum concentrations) lag changes in environmental records (e.g. loss-on-ignition) by a few decades, particularly at the Allerød/Younger Dryas transition. Most biodiversity indicators showed transition times of 10–50 years, whereas environmental records typically showed a 50–100 year long transition. In some cases, transition times observed for the compositional turnover or productivity records were up to 185 years, which could have been the result of the combined effects of direct (e.g. climate) and indirect (e.g. lake stratification) drivers of ecosystem change. Our results show differences in timing and duration of biodiversity responses to external disturbances, suggesting that a multi-decadal view needs to be taken when designing effective conservation management of freshwater ecosystems under current global warming.

External Organisation(s)

Birkbeck University of London
University of Cambridge
Utrecht University
Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources (IGG), Pisa Section
University College London (UCL)
University of Oxford
Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - German Research Centre for Geosciences
Geological Survey of the Netherlands (GDN)
Stefan Cel Mare University
University of Basel
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Swansea University
Technische Universität Braunschweig
University of Glasgow
University of Oslo
GNS Science
University of Amsterdam

Type

Article

Journal

Quaternary science reviews

Volume

331

No. of pages

20

ISSN

0277-3791

Publication date

01.05.2024

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Global and Planetary Change, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Archaeology, Archaeology, Geology

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 13 - Climate Action, SDG 15 - Life on Land

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108634 (Access: Open)