Vegetation and land snail-based reconstruction of the palaeocological changes in the forest steppe eco-region of the Carpathian Basin during last glacial warming

Abstract

In the present work, well radiocarbon-dated Quaternary malacological and palynological analyses were implemented on 4 cm samples deriving from one of the thickest and best developed last glacial sequences of Central Europe the Madaras brickyard and the borehole of Kolon Lake in the southern part of Hungary. Using a combination of mollusc, anthracological, palynological and climatic proxies evidence preserved within loess, we demonstrate that long-term changes (e.g. the last 39,000 (28,000) years) in paleoclimatic dynamics on the northern edge of the Bácska-Titel loess plateau, on the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. These proxy data are reflected in the following ecological changes: a turnover from predominantly cold-tolerant mollusc fauna in a boreal type forest-steppe context under cold conditions during the last glacial then followed by a shift to a predominantly xerotheromphilous land snail fauna in a temperate forest-steppe context under a warm temperate climate in the early Holocene. Certain warm-adapted, Central and SSE European distribution mollusc species such as Caucasotachea vindobonensis and Granaria frumentum, were found to have been associated with temperate forest-steppe in both the Holocene record and the present-day ecosystem.