Abstract
The aim of this research is to reconstruct the ancient distribution area of Abies pinsapo Boiss. (Spanish fir) in the Serranía de Ronda region, southern Spain, during the Holocene. The main method was pedoanthracological analysis, the study of non-archaeological charcoal found in natural soils. In this research a total of 37 soil excavations were done in several mountain ranges with potentially favourable places for firs to have grown in the past. Specific sites and places such as hillsides, endorheic basins (with no outflow), sinkholes, summits and mountain passes were selected on the basis of evidence from a range of different sources including ancient documents, pollen studies and species distribution models. The soil samples collected from these sites were prepared in the laboratory and the charcoal was identified and radiocarbon dated. Statistical and cartographic analyses were also done. The study revealed evidence of past populations of Abies sp. in places where it is no longer found today. A total of 47 different chronologies were obtained from these sites with ages ranging between 9,931 cal bp and 78 cal bp. In addition, the wide variations in the charcoal values enabled us to make an initial estimate of the importance of ancient forest fires in different places in the Serranía de Ronda. When this information has been considered with all the other available data sources, it will be an essential resource for the efficient management of relict fir woods in southern Spain.
Highlights
Understanding how and why biological organisms are distributed in space is a central principle of biogeographical research (Miller 2010), and the analysis of relations between taxa and their environment is a priority issue in any ecological discipline (Guisan and Zimmermann 2000)
In order to remedy this lack of accurate information, in this paper we propose that past fires, the main reason for the disappearance of A. pinsapo, offer a great opportunity to carry out a precise palaeobiogeographical reconstruction of its former natural habitat, which could be a key asset for its future recovery
The results obtained in this research make a valuable contribution to palaeobiogeographic knowledge of this taxon in southern Spain by offering a more accurate and detailed picture of its former distribution there
Summary
Understanding how and why biological organisms are distributed in space is a central principle of biogeographical research (Miller 2010), and the analysis of relations between taxa and their environment is a priority issue in any ecological discipline (Guisan and Zimmermann 2000). Its wide extension across southern Europe during the Pleistocene was greatly influenced by the recurrent oscillations in the climate, which caused continuous advances and retreats of the glaciers, which led to the contraction and fragmentation of the distribution areas of the taxa which were best adapted to temperate climates (van der Veken et al 2007; Alba-Sánchez and López-Sáez 2013) For much of this period, the north and centre of the Iberian Peninsula was covered by ice and snow, but this did not prevent the massive expansion of firs and other mountain conifers in forests south of the ice line that occupied a large part of the mountain ranges in the south
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