Rachel Jones | University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (original) (raw)
Address: Chickasha, Oklahoma, United States
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Papers by Rachel Jones
Vegetational response to climatic change involves processes of population and community dynamics ... more Vegetational response to climatic change involves processes of population and community dynamics
within local stands, which scale up to landscape-level changes in vegetation composition and broadscale
changes in species distributions. Understanding these dynamics poses a critical challenge to
paleoecological explanation, because of the broad range of scales at which these dynamics take place and
interact. We present an 8600-year paleoecological record of local and regional changes in forest
composition from a small (2.6 ha) lake in central Upper Michigan. Plant macrofossils provide a spatially
precise record of local forest composition, while pollen data provide a spatially integrated record of
regional vegetational changes. Temporal patterns among different macrofossil types within species show
overall coherence, indicating that changes in macrofossil abundance generally record changes in local
tree abundance. Temporal patterns in macrofossil sequences correspond to patterns in pollen sequences,
indicating that local changes contributed to the large-scale changes in the surrounding region. The pollen
and macrofossil records show nearly continuous turnover in vegetation composition throughout the past
8600 years; the longest period without major compositional change was ca 1600 years, and dynamics at
multidecadal to multicentennial scales are observed during many periods. Coordinated application of
temporally precise sequences of pollen and macrofossil data at multiple sites can support inferences
concerning vegetation dynamics at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and test mechanistic
hypotheses.
Vegetational response to climatic change involves processes of population and community dynamics ... more Vegetational response to climatic change involves processes of population and community dynamics
within local stands, which scale up to landscape-level changes in vegetation composition and broadscale
changes in species distributions. Understanding these dynamics poses a critical challenge to
paleoecological explanation, because of the broad range of scales at which these dynamics take place and
interact. We present an 8600-year paleoecological record of local and regional changes in forest
composition from a small (2.6 ha) lake in central Upper Michigan. Plant macrofossils provide a spatially
precise record of local forest composition, while pollen data provide a spatially integrated record of
regional vegetational changes. Temporal patterns among different macrofossil types within species show
overall coherence, indicating that changes in macrofossil abundance generally record changes in local
tree abundance. Temporal patterns in macrofossil sequences correspond to patterns in pollen sequences,
indicating that local changes contributed to the large-scale changes in the surrounding region. The pollen
and macrofossil records show nearly continuous turnover in vegetation composition throughout the past
8600 years; the longest period without major compositional change was ca 1600 years, and dynamics at
multidecadal to multicentennial scales are observed during many periods. Coordinated application of
temporally precise sequences of pollen and macrofossil data at multiple sites can support inferences
concerning vegetation dynamics at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and test mechanistic
hypotheses.