Response of a spring-fed fen ecosystem in Central Eastern Europe (NW Romania) to climate changes during the last 4000 years: A high resolution multi-proxy reconstruction

Abstract

We document the long-term development of a spring-fed fen assessing its sensivity to climate changes over the last ca. 4000 years. Our investigation is based on high-resolution, continuous plant macrofossil remains and mollusc records, complemented by pollen, geochemical analysis and radiocarbon dating of Valea Morii, located in the Feleac Hills (Transylvanian Depression) in NW Romania, Central Eastern Europe. Based on our palaeocological data we have distinguished three stages of wet habitat conditions: two stages between 4000 and 2450 cal yr BP and one in the last 800 cal yr BP, and one dry stage between ca. 2450 and 800 cal yr BP. These local habitat conditions appear to reasonably reflect regional climate characteristics. High-resolution analysis of two replicated cores documented a mostly comparable pattern of local plant and mollusc succession, and stable isotope values from ca. 500 cal yr BP. The appearance of C. mariscus during the last two centuries may be related to increased wetness and associated active CaCO3 precipitation, which allowed this plant to colonise the spring-fed fen studied. However, it can be not excluded that the occurrence and spread of a Cladium mariscus population at this site during the last two centuries might have been partly favoured by the warming of the climate after the Little Ice Age. The potential of carbonate oxygen stable isotope values as an indicator of major trends in climatic change, both temperature and humidity, in mountain spring-fed fen deposits is shown. Carbon isotopes in the carbonates were found to be useful in reconstruction of changes in vegetation, soil development and the dissolution of bedrock carbonates, primarily as a reaction to changes in climate humidity.