Preface

Abstract

The conference proceedings contain the selected papers presented at the 5th International Conference “Ecosystem dynamics in the Holocene”. This conference is a multidisciplinary scientific meeting, which is organized every 3 years in different scientific centers across Russia since 2004. It was held in Moscow, 11-15 November 2019, and dedicated to the 100th anniversary of L.G. Dinesman, the famous Russian biologist and palaeoecologist. The conference was organized by the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS), the Geological Institute of RAS, A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of RAS and the Environmental Evolution Commission of the International Geographical Union.The conference was focused on the long-term studies of ecosystem dynamics, climate changes and human activity in different geographical regions during the Holocene (the last 11700 years) as well as on new methods and approaches for reconstructions of the past environmental changes. It provided unique opportunities for scientists to introduce novel ideas and studies in the following topics:• Dynamics of marine, fresh water and terrestrial ecosystems in the Holocene;• Holocene landscape and climate changes;• Natural and anthropogenic factors in the Holocene ecosystem dynamics;• Environment condition and human occupation in the Holocene;• Ecological modeling and forecasting; and• Methods of ecosystem studies.More than 100 oral and poster presentations were made at the sessions of the conference. The present special issue of IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science contains the results of 27 specially selected reports focused of the most important problems of modern palaeogeography, palaeoecology and palaeoclimatology.The papers demonstrate that the expertise of the modern state of natural ecosystems and projections of their future changes is quite impossible without comprehensive understanding of the past environment and climate dynamics and ecosystem functioning including its adaptation to human impact. The papers relate to different scientific areas and introduce new results of the experimental and theoretical studies that are based on detailed palaeoecological information (pollen, plant macrofossil, diatoms, testate amoebae, etc), radiocarbon dates, evidence about beginning of human activities and archeological findings. The special attention in the Special Issue is given to the studies of the land surface - atmosphere interaction using various experimental and modeling approaches in order to provide a better understanding of the response of terrestrial vegetation to climate variability in past epochs.The Organizing Committee expresses deep gratitude to all organizers and participants of the conference for their active participation, interest and discussion on the Holocene ecosystem dynamics, climate changes and human activity in different regions which is a significant contribution to the development of palaeoecology. The Organizing Committee thanks the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project No. 19-05-20072) and the Environment Evolution Commission of the International Geographical Union for provided financial support.EditorsDr.Sc. Elena Novenko, the chair of the Organizing CommitteeProf. Dr. Alexander Olchev