The response of a shallow lake and its catchment to Late Glacial climate changes — A case study from eastern Poland

Abstract

In this study we investigate how climate fluctuation in the Late Glacial period influenced the development of a lake and its catchment located in the East European Plain. We analyzed the sediments of the lake for pollen, subfossil Cladocera, macrofossils and chemical composition. We aimed at disentangling: (1) the climate changes and their limno-ecological responses, (2) temperature dynamics with the use of Cladocera-based transfer function (MJT) and macrofossil-based reconstruction of mean minimum July temperature (MMJT), (3) timing of the response of different proxies to environmental changes. The results of multiproxy analyses explicitly suggest that the main driver for changes in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as geomorphological processes in the catchment was climate. Reconstructed temperatures generally follow the known trends showing the increase at the beginning of the Allerød and decrease at the beginning of the Younger Dryas. However, there are some discrepancies between the two reconstructions as well as between the generally accepted temperature trends in Late Glacial. The timing of the proxy response to climate change differs, the aquatic proxies responding first.