Notes on the history of the genus Betula in Turkey during the Late Quaternary

Abstract

The presence of Betula in Turkey over the last 15,000 years has been studied on the basis of the pollen record. It seems that modem birch pollen merely is “background noise”, mostly noticeable in the north, where wind-borne pollen from Europe may be precipitated by rainfall. Subfossil evidence demonstrates that a shift in the distribution of birch took place from the west to the east, probably connected with an upward shift in the upper tree-line during the Holocene. Conditions for birch growth around this limit are nowadays found only on the high mountains in eastern Turkey.