Carpinus betulus pollen accumulation rates in Roztocze (SE Poland) in relation to presence of Carpinus in Ferdynandovian pollen diagrams

Abstract

Carpinus pollen has been recorded in fossil pollen diagrams of different interglacials. In case of the Ferdynandovian pollen sequence it is of particular importance to know if scattered presence of Carpinus pollen at the decline of Ferdynandovian 1 interglacial represents long distance transport of pollen or small isolated Carpinus populations. The study aims to trace the pollen-vegetation relationship in Roztocze (SE Poland) using Tauber-style pollen traps to understand better the pattern of Carpinus pollen dispersal and deposition. High and low pollen deposition years were recorded for Carpinus betulus in the period 1998–2010. Deposition was extremely high in 2002. Average annual pollen accumulation rate was calculated at 1348 grains cm -2 year -1 , which was 4.1% of total pollen spectrum. The study confirms that the earlier pollen presence/absence threshold values of about 5% for the presence of Carpinus trees in vegetation (Huntley & Birks 1983) were too high. The pollen monitoring data from Roztocze support the opinion of Ralska-Jasiewiczowa et al. (2004) that low values of about 0.5% may reflect the presence of Carpinus trees in the forests. These data, in comparison to the scattered Carpinus pollen grains in the last part of the Ferdynandovian 1 interglacial seem to indicate that single trees of this genus may nave occurred in the vegetation at the decline of interglacial optimum.