Hermann Behling

• University of Göttingen

Predictions of tropical cyclone (TC) frequencies are hampered by insufficient knowledge of their natural variability in the past. A 30-m-long sediment core from the Great Blue Hole, a marine sinkhole offshore Belize, provides the longest available, continuous, and annually resolved TC-frequency record. This record expands our understanding, derived...

The Central Asian (CA) steppe ecosystem and its fauna experienced a marked transition during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO), though the specific process and dynamics remain elusive. We selected the Duolebulejin (DLB) section within the Junggar Basin to reconstruct vegetation and climate changes, using proxies such as particle size, mammalian fo...

Plain Language Summary Exploring the response of vegetation to the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO, ∼17.0–14.0 Ma) can serve as an analogy for studies of ecological impacts under future global warming. Here, we perform magnetostratigraphic dating and past vegetation‐climate reconstruction in high‐resolution terrestrial sediments in the Tongxin Basin...

Although it is well known that humans substantially altered the Malagasy ecosystems, the timing of the human arrival as well as the extension of their environmental impact is yet not well understood. This research aims to study the influence of early human impact and climate change on rainforests and wildlife in northern Madagascar during the past...

Understanding the organization of mutualistic networks at multiple spatial scales is key to ensure biological conservation and functionality in human-modified ecosystems. Yet, how changing habitat and landscape features affect pollen–bee interaction networks is still poorly understood. Here, we analysed how bee–flower visitation and bee–pollen-tran...

Tropical peatland ecosystems in Southeast Asia offer essential ecological services but face various threats such as sea level alterations, climate change and human activities. However, our understanding of the origins of peatlands and their dynamics is still limited. Reconstruction of historical vegetation and environmental changes is imperative to...

Forest-grassland mosaics are ecosystems with sharp contrasts. Factors controlling their heterogeneity have interested researchers worldwide. To date, only few natural remains of these ecosystems exist, such as the Araucaria and Campos region in southern Brazil. Different paleoecological studies elucidate the vegetation and climate history of the re...

Introduction Apis dorsata , the common bee pollinator in tropical forests, is experiencing a population decrease due to several anthropogenic factors that lead to land cover changes and habitat loss. Land cover changes may alter their resource supply and foraging behavior. Our study aimed to determine foraging behavior and botanical origin using po...

In many parts of southern Brazil, mosaics of grassland and forests are found, but little is known how this vegetation pattern has been formed. Are these mosaics partly natural or made by humans? Paleoecological information is needed for understanding the origin of these ecosystems. Data on development, dynamic and stability, their response to envir...

Blue holes (marine sinkholes) are remarkable archives for past cyclone-frequency reconstructions, as they work as formidable natural sediment traps over periods of several millennia. Tropical cyclones (TC) mobilize allochthonous particles from adjacent areas during their passages. In the Belizean “Great Blue Hole”, these particles become repeatedly...

Riparian wetland ecosystems provide important ecological services but are also vulnerable to climate change and human activities. To understand the influence of natural factors (e.g. climate change, flooding, drought) and human activities (e.g. agriculture) as well as to support management strategies, reconstructions of past vegetation and environm...

In South America, one of the least addressed regions in paleoecological studies is the Brazilian Semiarid region, composed of vegetation from different biomes and currently marked by an arid climate. Although environmental conditions do not favor the formation of palynological sites, previous studies have indicated an expansion of savanna vegetatio...

We studied the modern pollen rain in two different landscapes from Hyrcanian lowland forests up to the slopes of the Alborz Mountains in Gilan province for the first time. Pollen traps were installed for one year and moss samples were collected along two altitudinal transects from 100 to 1800 m and from 100 to 2300 m elevations. The results of poll...

Madagascar comprises one of the Earth's biologically richest, but also one of most endangered, terrestrial ecoregions. Although it is obvious that humans substantially altered its natural ecosystems during the past decades, the timing of arrival of humans on Madagascar as well as their environmental impact is not well resolved. In this context, thi...

The water vapor source in Central Asia (CA) during the middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) is debated. We investigated the Duolebulejin (DLB) section in the Junggar Basin, dated to 18.8–13.2 million years ago (Ma), to reconstruct the history of the vegetation using analyses of multiple indices including pollen, soil organic matter carbon isotope...

Mauritia peatland palm swamps (locally called aguajales) are typical ecosystems in Madre de Dios River floodplains in southeastern Peru. We investigated a sediment core from an oxbow lake in Los Amigos Aguajal to reconstruct paleoclimatic changes, vegetation dynamics on a regional scale, and human impact using multi-proxy analysis. The results show...

Paleoecological reconstructions of hydrological regimes in tropical peatlands during the Holocene are important for the estimation of their responses to changing environments. However, the application of some widely used proxies, such as testate amoebae, is hampered by poor knowledge of their morphology and ecological preferences in the region. The...

Understanding past forest dynamics and human influence is essential for future forest management and ecosystem conservation. This study aims to provide insights into the forest dynamics and agroforestry history in the highlands of Sumatra for the last 1800 years. We carried out palaeoecological multi-proxy analyses of pollen, spores, non-pollen pal...

In this paper, we use palynology and geochemical proxies to reconstruct late Quaternary vegetation changes within the hydrographic basin of Parnaíba, Northeast Brazil, over the last 130 kyrs. Findings are based on the analysis of a marine sediment core (GL-1248) retrieved from the western equatorial Atlantic (0°55.2′S, 43°24.1′W), close to the coas...

In palaeoecology, multi-site macro-charcoal analyses provide information on climate–fire–vegetation linkages, their spatial and temporal extent, and the impact of prehistoric human practices. Our multi-site study comprises eight macro-charcoal records from two highly continental forest-steppe regions in western and north-central Mongolia, covering...

Past vegetation and environmental changes and the role of climate as well as human activities are of major interest. The Hyrcanian region with a high number of endemic species has a poorly known paleoenvironmental history, especially the western region of northern Iran. This study aims to investigate a radiocarbon-dated sediment core of the Kholash...

Coastal forests and wetlands play an important role in supporting biodiversity, protecting the hinterlands and shorelines from erosion and also contributing to carbon sequestration and freshwater storage. To reconstruct late Holocene vegetation and environmental dynamics in the coastal lowlands of northern Iran and to detect the possible role of cl...

The increase of world population needs more food, feed, fuel, and fiber. Meanwhile, agricultural land supply is somewhat stationary or even decreasing. Ensuring food provision requires both intensification and expansion strategies. Considering internal circumstances, options may vary across countries. Indonesia, for instance, by population growth r...

Background Intense conversion of tropical forests into agricultural systems contributes to habitat loss and the decline of ecosystem functions. Plant-pollinator interactions buffer the process of forest fragmentation, ensuring gene flow across isolated patches of forests by pollen transfer. In this study, we identified the composition of pollen gra...

There are several potential practical applications of paleoecological information that can provide guidance for improving peatland restoration in Indonesia, and highlight the values, roles, and applicability of paleoecology in ecological restoration.

Lichens are important in many modern terrestrial ecosystems, but their fossil record has been very sparse. This has limited the chances for finding any evidence of their interactions with animals in past ecosystems. Recently, the fossil record of lichens has improved significantly with the discovery of numerous new inclusions from European Paleogen...

We provide an overview of the Holocene paleoecology of the Llanos ecoregion. A region that captured the attention of researchers for more than 200 years, as it exhibits a high heterogeneity in landscapes and vegetation, where savanna and forest mosaics exist. Located in an area influenced by the seasonal migration of the Intertropical Convergence Z...

The Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP) has been a region of great significance for palynological studies featuring the combination of unique tropical vegetation, tectonics determining frequent volcanic eruptions, and a long settlement history. This palynological study aims at reconstructing ecosystem processes and is based on a long-term analysis...

Southeast Asian peatlands, along with their various important ecosystem services, are mainly distributed in the coastal areas of Sumatra and Borneo. These ecosystems are threatened by coastal development, global warming and sea level rise (SLR). Despite receiving growing attention for their biodiversity and as massive carbon stores, there is still...

Tropical peatlands are an important carbon reservoir; however, they are vulnerable to climate change, fire events, and human disturbances, and may become a significant carbon source if degraded. In this paper, we investigated the late Holocene record of vegetation change, peatland evolution, and C accumulation based on analysis of a sediment core t...

Madagascar houses one of the Earth’s biologically richest, but also one of most endangered, terrestrial ecoregions. Although it is obvious that humans substantially altered the natural ecosystems during the past decades, the timing of arrival of early inhabitants on Madagascar as well as their environmental impact is still intensively debated. This...

The Araguaia river is one of the most important hydrographic basin in Brazil. Its drainage system reaches two dominant Brazilian biomes that are Amazon Rainforest and Brazilian Cerrado (savanna). This study was carried out in a zone of ecotone between rainforest and savanna formations, in the Middle Araguaia River basin, specifically at the floodpl...

A coupled pollen-brGDGT paleoclimate reconstruction approach has been tested to provide independent and robust estimates of Holocene climate and environment changes in the extremely arid environment of the mountainous areas ranging from northern Arid Central Asia (ACA) to the Mongolian Plateau. The two proxies were calibrated for both global and lo...

The timing of the Monte Peron Landslide is revised to 2890 cal. BP based on a radiocarbon-dated sediment stratigraphy of Lago di Vedana. This age fosters the importance of hydroclimatic triggers in the light of accelerating global warming with a predicted increase of precipitation enhancing the regional predisposition to large landslides. Moreover,...

Little is known about the history of the coastal environment in the northern part of northeastern Brazil and the role of sea level and climate change, as well as the human impact during the past. In order to shed more light on coastal ecosystem dynamics and its influencing factors, a 300 cm long sediment core has been taken from Lago Formoso (LF),...

Paleoclimate reconstructions appear to be unavoidable steps in the future climate change understanding and especially the local calibration of the paleoclimate proxies. The Mongolian Plateau in particular, is a scarcely studied area. Here we present a latitudinal transect from the southern Siberian Baikal area to the Mongolian part of the Gobi dese...

Quaternary climatic changes have been invoked as important drivers of species diversification worldwide. However, the impact of such changes on vegetation and animal population dynamics in tropical regions remains debated. To overcome this uncertainty, we integrated high-resolution paleoenvironmental reconstructions from a sedimentary record coveri...

Past vegetation, fire, and climate dynamics, as well as human impact, have been reconstructed for the first time in the highlands of the Gilan province in the Alborz mountains (above the Hyrcanian forest) for the last 4,300 cal yrs bp. Multi-proxy analysis, including pollen, spores, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal, and geochemical analysis, has b...

Land transformation in the tropical rainforests to monoculture plantations leads to biodiversity loss and abiotic change. In the oil palm and rubber plantations of Sumatra, we explored the foraging behavior of stingless bees Lepidotrigona terminata, Sundatrigona moorei, and Tetragonula drescheri. Pollen was collected from bees returning to the nest...

The Tarvagatai Nuruu National Park, situated in the northern Khangai Mountains in central Mongolia, is dominated by a forest-steppe ecosystem. An extreme continental and semi-arid climate is characteristic for forest-steppe ecosystems in Central Asia and their vegetation is very sensitive to climatic changes and human impacts by pastoralism and tre...

We present a high-resolution multi-proxy study including pollen, spores, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal, loss on ignition, and geochemical analysis from the radiocarbon dated sediment core of Annal Lake. The lake is located at 700 m elevation in the Hyrcanian forest of the Gilan province, northern Iran. Between ca. 1690 and 1450 cal yr BP, a mix...

Our understanding of climate and vegetation changes throughout the Holocene is hampered by representativeness in sedimentary archives. Potential biases such as production and preservation of the markers are identified by comparing these proxies with modern environments. It is important to conduct multi-proxy studies and robust calibrations on each...

Peat fires in Indonesia are predominantly anthropogenic and intensified by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related droughts. In recent decades, peat fires, which typically occurred in degraded areas (partially/entirely deforested peatlands), released massive amounts of carbon by burning the peat swamp vegetation and peat substrate. However, it...

Pre-Columbian reforestation in Amazonia An early 17th-century temporary reduction in global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels was previously attributed to reforestation in Amazonia after the catastrophic loss of life of the indigenous population caused by diseases brought by European invaders. Using fossil pollen data from Amazonian lake se...

Our understanding of climate changes throughout the Holocene is hampered by representativeness in sedimentary archives. Potential production and preservation biases of the markers are identified by comparing these proxies with modern environments. It is important to conduct robust calibrations on each biome. These calibrations use large database do...

Our understanding of climate changes throughout the Holocene is hampered by representativeness in sedimentary archives. Potential production and preservation biases of the markers are identified by comparing these proxies with modern environments. It is important to conduct robust calibrations on each biome. These calibrations use large database do...

Iran is one of the largest honey-producing countries worldwide and is considered as an important source of honey for international markets. However, since Iran is not registered for honey export to Europe, the quality of Iranian honey remains unknown to European traders. As the first step in filling this gap, we analyzed 225 honey samples using pal...

Strong floristic affinities indicate past ecosystem rearrangements that integrated northeast Brazil with the distant montane range of the Brazilian highlands, sustaining past plant migrations possibly due to climatic patterns. This palynological study of the marine core GL-1248 (0°55.2′S, 43°24.1′W) spans the past ~130-k years to reconstruct the mo...

The Mongolian Altai is an ecologically sensitive region in Central Asia where changes in climate and anthropogenic activities have a strong impact on the forest-steppe vegetation. We combine high-resolution data (pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP), charcoal) of two new sedimentological archives from the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park with dendro...

Coastal forests and wetlands play an important role in supporting biological diversity, protecting the hinterlands and shorelines along the continental margins from erosion, as well as for contributing to carbon and freshwater storage. To reconstruct late Holocene vegetation and environmental dynamics in the coastal lowlands in northern Iran and de...

Scientific projections point to the increase of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere will turn the oceans warmer and, consequently, the upper layer of the thermohaline circulation will get thicker, restricting the productivity areas. Oligotrophic conditions will tend to prevail, and expanding the range of proxy data in oligotrophic oceans, acros...

We analysed pollen and macro-charcoal from a sediment core representing the last 9840 cal yr BP, collected at 2003 m a.s.l. in a patch of upper montane Atlantic Rain Forest (UMARF) embedded in a campos de altitude (high-elevation grassland) matrix in the Serra dos Órgãos National Park, southeastern Brazil. From 9840 to 4480 cal yr BP, campos de alt...

Our understanding of climate and vegetation changes throughout the Holocene is hampered by representativeness in sedimentary archives. Potential biases such as production and preservation of the markers are identified by comparing these proxies with modern environments. It is important to conduct multi-proxy studies and robust calibrations on each...

Unfavourable climatic conditions force Iranian beekeepers to translocate over large distances in the course of the year. However, irrespective of the main place of production, the honey is always labeled with the name of the beekeepers' hometown, which leads consequently to mislabeled products. The present study investigates the capability of DNA m...

We analyzed modern pollen deposition along an altitudinal gradient in the Brazilian southeastern coastal mountains between 1600 and 2200 m elevation in order to investigate the relationship between modern vegetation and pollen rain, within vegetation composed of montane and upper montane forest in a mosaic with campos de altitude (CDA). The results...

Tropical peatlands play an important role in carbon storage and in water regulation on a landscape level. However, our understanding of their ecology and long-term hydrological dynamics remains limited. Transfer functions, constructed on the basis of biological indicators (proxies) with known ecological preferences, allow us to infer past environme...

Here, we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and South America to address two hypotheses regarding possible drivers of resilience in tropical forests as measured in terms of recovery rates from previous disturbances. First, we hypothesize that faster recovery rates are associated with regions of higher bi...

Four palynological and three diatom zones of Mid-to Late Holocene are identified along a 370-cm-long radio-carbon dated sediment core collected in Lake Hamra at Wadi El Natrun (Western Nile Delta, Egypt). The Mid-Late Holocene between the Predynastic to Old Kingdom was terrestrial wetland habitat with high seasonal rainfall and/or Nile flood as rev...

The ‘Altai Tavan Bogd’ National Park in the north-western part of the Mongolian Altai, Central Asia, is located in a forest-steppe ecosystem. It occurs under the influence of extreme continental and montane climate and is sensitive to natural and anthropogenic impacts. High-resolution (<20 years per sample) multi-proxy data of pollen, non-pollen pa...

The Reinhardswald (near Kassel, Hesse) forms one of the biggest coherent forests in the northern German highlands, with a total area of 18.500 ha. Within the study area, which is mainly characterised by red sandstone bedrock, there are extended woodrush-beech forests (Luzulo-Fagion sylvaticae) located on steep slopes of the river Weser valley. On s...

Palynological analysis and radiocarbon dating of a short sediment core from a high altitude mire in the Arasbaran area of northwestern Iran reveal long-term vegetation dynamics, climate change and anthropogenic impact. Our findings indicate the prevalence of semi-desert steppe vegetation, with a variety of Asteraceae - mainly Lactuceae – species fr...

We present a high-resolution pollen and charcoal record from the 350-cm Agulhas Negras (AN) sediment core from the Serra do Itatiaia, Itatiaia National Park, located at 2410 m altitude in Rio de Janeiro State, southeastern (SE) Brazil. Diverse campos de altitude (high elevation grassland) with small areas of montane forest and periodic fires domina...

Rice is one of the most important subsidence crops, however evidence of the origin and domestication of rice cultivation is still scarce in Indonesia. This study aims to trace the beginning of rice cultivation and buffalo husbandry in Sumatra, Indonesia. We carried out palaeoecological multi-proxy analyses of pollen and spores, non-pollen palynomor...

This study was conducted with aim to reconstruct the late Holocene mangrove history and to investigate if mangroves can be resilient to current and projected sea-level rise (SLR). The palynological record from a sediment core in the Mendahara Ilir region (MI) in Sumatra was compared with available sea level reconstructions from sites close to MI (M...

The Holocene is a key period for understanding the role of climate change and the human impacts on the environment. These changes are probably the main drivers of forest-related vicariance and patterns of genetic diversity in the tropics. Vegetation changes are good indicators of climate change/and or human impacts. In this context, a sediment core...

In the Orinoco Llanos, archaeological studies indicate a continuous late Holocene human occupation, including the development of ranked societies, from about 1,500 year bp (ad 500) However, until now palaeoecological studies dealing with the impact of anthropogenic activities in the region have been scarce. Here we present a palynological analysis...

To improve our understanding of the Atlantic Forest responses to climate changes in space and time, it is essential to explore how the Brazilian Atlantic rain forest is structured as observed in modern pollen assemblages and which climate parameters determine these patterns. In this context, we compiled 196 modern pollen samples including 125 from...

We present a pollen-based palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the past 3300 years in the Kabal Valley of Swat District in the Hindu Kush mountains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, north-western Pakistan. We studied the pollen record from 38 samples taken from a 150 cm long radiocarbon-dated sediment core in order to analyse the vegetation history...

We present a pollen-based palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the past 3300 years in the Kabal Valley of Swat District in the Hindu Kush mountains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, northwestern Paki-stan. We studied the pollen record from 38 samples taken from a 150 cm long radiocarbon-dated sediment core in order to analyse the vegetation history...

Bumblebees are important pollinators for a wide range of crops and wild plants. Performance of their colonies depends on pollen and nectar as food resources, but flowering plants are scarce in modern agricultural landscapes. It is well‐known that semi‐natural habitats can enhance floral resources and bumblebee abundance, but the impact of different...

Campos de altitude and Araucaria forest are unique and highly diverse ecosystems and focus areas for conservation and restoration in southeastern Brazil. This paper reports a high-resolution paleoecological study of an approximately 700-year Late Holocene core, a period that includes the influence of two highly distinct civilizations and the transi...

The ‘Altai Tavan Bogd’ conservation area, located between 2,000 and 4,000 m a.s.l. in the north-western part of the Mongolian Altai, is a montane forest-steppe-ecosystem which has developed under extreme continental and alpine climatic conditions and is very sensitive to natural variations. Nomadic peoples have influenced the area due to grazing, l...