Holocene palynology: I principles,population and community ecology,palaeoclimatology

Abstract

The latter half of the past decade witnessed important progress in elucidating the principles of fossil pollen analysis and in the application of palynology to the study of palaeoecology and palaeoclimatology. Areas with particularly notable efforts include: 1) the theoretical consideration of the spatial representation of fossil pollen records and the relationships of pollen proportions to the abundance of contributing plant populations; 2) the quest for palynological data with increasingly fine temporal and spatial resolution; 3) the development of large databases of modern and fossil pollen data for macroscale palaeoecological and palaeoclimatic studies; 4) the application of palynology to questions of plant population biology, most notably the study of plant invasion and implications for invading and pre-existing plant populations; 5) the demonstration of the relatively ephemeral nature of major vegetation types; 6) the refinement and development of techniques for providing quantitative estimates of past climate and testing climate reconstructions. Despite this progress important uncertainties remain regarding the relationship between plant abundance and pollen representation and the nature of climate-vegetation relationships, particularly at the meso- and microscales. Resolution of these questions is particularly important for plant population and climatic studies based on fossil pollen data.