Understanding how past climate changes affected biodiversity is a key issue in contemporary ecology and conservation biology. These diversity changes are, however, difficult to reconstruct from paleoecological sources alone, because macrofossil and pollen records do not provide complete information about species assemblages. Ecologists therefore use information from modern analogues of past com...

*Correspondence: Randel T. Cox, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Memphis, Johnson Hall, Memphis, TN 38152, USA e-mail: [email protected] Large-scale liquefaction features (e.g., sand blows, lateral-spread fissure vents) that can be recognized on remote-sensing imagery and photography have been of great utility in developing chronologies of paleo-earthquakes. In areas where large-s...

We built a composite of three reconstructions of the solar modulation function over the Holocene. The reconstructions until 1950 are based on data from cosmogenic radionuclides and the present time (1951–2004) on neutron monitor data. Interpreting our composite as an index of solar activity, we were able to compare the current solar activity with the last 9 300 years. During this time span 25 p...

Blanket bog occupies approximately 6 % of the area of the UK today. The Holocene expansion of this hyperoceanic biome has previously been explained as a consequence of Neolithic forest clearance. However, the present distribution of blanket bog in Great Britain can be predicted accurately with a simple model (PeatStash) based on summer temperature and moisture index thresholds, and the same mod...

The North Iceland shelf bears essential components of the present surface and intermediate circulation of the northern North Atlantic. Instrumental and historical data give evidence of the sensitivity of this domain to broad, regional-scale oceanic and atmospheric anomalies. Our investigation of the paleohydrological variability off Northern Iceland throughout the last 10 000 cal yr suggests th...

[1] Accurate land cover reconstructions are essential to understanding the past and present biogeochemical and biogeophysical interactions between the land surface and atmosphere and the impacts of these interactions on climate. Here we quantitatively reconstruct late Quaternary shifts in woody cover across the Northern Hemisphere forest‐tundra ecotone, based on a synthesis of Northern Hemisphe...

To achieve a better understanding of Holocene climate change in the monsoon regions of China, we investigated the molecular distributions and carbon and hydrogen isotope compositions (δ13C and δD values) of long-chain n-alkanes in a peat core from the Shiwangutian (SWGT) peatland, south China over the last 9 ka. By comparisons with other climate records, we found that the δ13C values of the lon...

Sediments from Xinyun Lake in central Yunnan, southwest China, provide a record of environmental history since the Holocene. With the application of multi-proxy indicators (total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), δ13C and δ15N isotopes, C/N ratio, grain size, magnetic susceptibility (MS) and CaCO3 content), as well as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C datings, four major climatic...

Relative sea-level (RSL) records from far-field regions distal ice sheets remain poorly understood, particularly in the early Holocene. Here, we extended Holocene RSL data Singapore by producing index points (SLIPs) and limiting dates a new ~40 m sediment core. We merged published to construct standardized database consisting of 88 SLIPs data. In Holocene, rose rapidly −21.0 −0.7 ~9500 7000 cal...

Introduction Khoesan is a term used to identify a large cluster of southern African peoples who share a number of linguistic, cultural and biological traits which distinguish them from neighbouring Bantu-speakers. Although linguistically diverse, all Khoesan groups speak click languages. Similarities in territorial organization, gender relations, kinship, ritual and cosmology are also shared ac...