In mid to high latitudes glacial and interglacial cycles have repeatedly changed the area available for plant growth. The speed at which plants are able to colonize areas at the onset of an interglacial is hypothesized to limit their distribution ranges even today (migrational lag). If the spread of plants would have been generally slow then plant diversity in previously glaciated areas would b...

When fossil diatoms are preserved in mires, they can be excellent indicators of ecological conditions and very useful in palaeoenviromental reconstruction, both alone and in combination with other siliceous fossils. Processing techniques for diatom frustules have varied and been modified according to the sediment from which the diatoms are being extracted. They differ from those used for palyno...

†Co-first authors. Assessment of biodiversity in a changing world is a key issue and studies on the processes and factors influencing its history at relevant time scales are needed. In this study, we analyzed temporal trends of plant diversity using fossil pollen records from the North American boreal forest-taiga biome (NABT). We selected 205 pollen records spanning the last 15,500 years. Dive...

Ania Lindl. is a small genus of the tribe Collabieae subtribe Collabiinae (Orchidaceae). For the last 150 years, it has generally been treated as a synonym of Tainia Blume. In this study, we critically re-examined morphological characters that have been used to distinguish Ania from Tainia, and assessed the phylogeny of Tainia using morphological and palynological characters. Sequences of the n...