Bryophytes in a latrine as indicators of climate change in the 17th century

Abstract

Thirty-eight samples recovered from a latrine in the rural market town of Hadersdorf am Kamp (Lower Austria) and filled during the early 17th century were analysed and compared to the current bryophyte vegetation there and in its surroundings. Twenty-eight moss species from the latrine could be identified, and four taxa could be determined only to genus level because of missing sporophytes. The resulting data set is a valuable contribution to the state of knowledge of the bryophyte flora of that historic period, as none of the traditional methods such as herbaria date back to this early era. The most frequent species in the pit, Leucodon sciuroides, Antitrichia curtipendula and Neckera complanata, could hardly be found or not at all in the current bryophyte flora of the investigated area. A comparison of Ellenberg’s indicator values of the historic and current moss taxa revealed significant differences for temperature, humidity and continentality. Temperature values were much lower for the taxa found in the latrine. Furthermore, the historic mosses reflect a more humid and less continental climate than the ones growing nowadays. Many of the mosses found in the latrine are epiphytic or epilithic and could not be found in the investigated area today. These results indicate a different climate during the time of the Little Ice Age in the investigated area. According to the low total biomass of mosses in the pit (1–2 g per 10 l) we suggest that those found in the latrine arrived there mainly by chance, as in sweepings.