Shifting patterns ofNothofagus cunninghamii(Hook.) Oerst rainforest in the late quaternary of southeastern Australia: Evidence from pollen

Autor: G. Merna McKenzie
Rok vydání: 1995
Předmět:
Zdroj: Historical Biology. 9:257-268
ISSN: 1029-2381
0891-2963
DOI: 10.1080/10292389509380503
Popis: An attempt is made to identify the location and nature of areas in which the cool temperate rainforest tree Nothofagus cunninghamii may have survived the glacial period, using fossil pollen data from sites at different altitudes in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At one high altitude site Nothofagus has been recorded consistently through the latter part of the Pleistocence including the height of the last glacial. There was a postglacial expansion at most sites to a maximum extent in the early to middle Holocene, followed by a decline at all sites and elimination from two of the lower altitude sites. The persistence of Nothofagus pollen through the height of the last glacial in a sheltered high altitude site supports the concept of glacial refugia, and leads to the query as to how Nothofagus survived the glacial under winter temperatures several degrees lower than those supporting the tree today. Evidence from evolutionary history, clinal variation in morphology and physiology along altitudi...
Databáze: OpenAIRE