1100-years history of transformation of the East European forest-steppe into arable land: Case study from Kursk region (Russia)

IF 3.3 2区地球科学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Anthropocene Pub Date : 2023-06-01 DOI:10.1016/j.ancene.2023.100385

Alisa Kasianova , Monika Schmidt , Oleg Radyush , Ekaterina Lukanina , Jens Schneeweiß , Frank Schlütz , Lyudmila Shumilovskikh

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Large parts of the East European forest-steppe are covered by agricultural and pastoral landscapes with decreasing proportions of semi-natural meadow steppes and fragments of semi-natural woodland. Although numerous palynological records indicate that a total deforestation occurred in the last 500 years, the details of the transformation from natural vegetation into an agrarian landscape are still lacking as well as an evaluation of the political role in this process. This study focuses on the vegetation and fire history at the northern edge of the forest-steppe in the Kursk region (Russia) and aim to reconstruct the transformation process in its historical context. New pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs and charcoal records with decennial to centennial resolution obtained from the Seim River region enable a comprehensive reconstruction of the local and regional landscape history over the last 1100 years. The palynological records provide unique insights into the heterogeneous vegetation cover of microregions and evidence spatial asynchronous deforestation and crop field creation. The findings highlight a crucial role of political systems on the formation of agro-pastoral landscapes with small remaining forest patches of today. The heterogeneity of the natural vegetation distribution before major deforestation as well as the duration of human impact should be considered in ecosystem restoration projects.

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东欧森林草原向耕地转变的1100年历史——以俄罗斯库尔斯克地区为例

东欧森林草原的大部分被农业和田园景观覆盖，半自然草甸草原和半自然林地的比例逐渐减少。尽管大量孢粉记录表明，在过去的500年里发生了一次全面的森林砍伐，但从自然植被到农业景观的转变的细节仍然缺乏，也缺乏对这一过程中政治作用的评估。本研究以俄罗斯库尔斯克地区北部边缘森林草原的植被和火灾历史为研究对象，旨在重建其历史背景下的转变过程。从Seim河地区获得的新花粉、非花粉孢粉形态和木炭记录具有10年至100年的分辨率，可以全面重建近1100年来当地和区域的景观历史。孢粉记录提供了对微区异质性植被覆盖的独特见解，并为空间非同步森林砍伐和作物田创造提供了证据。这些发现强调了政治制度在农牧景观的形成过程中所起的关键作用，这些景观如今只剩下一小块森林。生态系统恢复工程应考虑大规模毁林前自然植被分布的异质性和人为影响的持续时间。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Anthropocene Earth and Planetary Sciences-Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)

CiteScore

6.30

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

102 days

期刊介绍： Anthropocene is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes peer-reviewed works addressing the nature, scale, and extent of interactions that people have with Earth processes and systems. The scope of the journal includes the significance of human activities in altering Earth’s landscapes, oceans, the atmosphere, cryosphere, and ecosystems over a range of time and space scales - from global phenomena over geologic eras to single isolated events - including the linkages, couplings, and feedbacks among physical, chemical, and biological components of Earth systems. The journal also addresses how such alterations can have profound effects on, and implications for, human society. As the scale and pace of human interactions with Earth systems have intensified in recent decades, understanding human-induced alterations in the past and present is critical to our ability to anticipate, mitigate, and adapt to changes in the future. The journal aims to provide a venue to focus research findings, discussions, and debates toward advancing predictive understanding of human interactions with Earth systems - one of the grand challenges of our time.