Katarzyna Marcisz

Adam Mickiewicz University | UAM · Climate Change Ecology Research Unit

Research over the past decade has shown that quantifying spatial variation in ecosystem properties is an effective approach to investigating the effects of environmental change on ecosystems. Yet, current consensus among scientists is that we need a better understanding of short‐ and long‐term (temporal) variation in ecosystem properties to plan ef...

In northern peatlands, reduction of Sphagnum dominance in favour of vascular vegetation is likely to influence biogeochemical processes. Such vegetation changes occur as the water table lowers and temperatures rise. To test which of these factors has a significant influence on peatland vegetation, we conducted a 3‐year manipulative field experiment...

The Sphagnum-dominated peatlands are very sensitive not only to global climate change but also to local human activities. Therefore, they are suitable for palaeoecological reconstructions. A particular case of anthropogenic changes that influence peatland functioning is a change in the forest composition related to planned forest management, for ex...

Understanding climate change's extent, rate and effects is one of modern science's most critical challenges. These changes, manifested by increasingly higher average air temperatures and changes in precipitation, are affecting ecosystems globally. Pinus sylvestris monocultures, because of their homogeneous structure and simplified ecosystem structu...

Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on...

Human activity has fundamentally altered wildfire on Earth, creating serious consequences for human health, global biodiversity, and climate change. However, it remains difficult to predict fire interactions with land use, management, and climate change, representing a serious knowledge gap and vulnerability. We used expert assessment to combine op...

Over the past decade, the neodymium (Nd) isotope composition of mineral matter from peat cores has seen increasingly common use as a tracer of dust influx associated with major changes in the Holocene atmospheric circulation. However, the incomplete understanding of the local controls on the sources of the sediment supplied to peatlands remains a k...

The subalpine, atmospherically fed Śnieżka peatland, located in the Polish part of the Sudetes, is one of the nominated candidates for the GSSP of the Anthropocene. Data from two profiles, Sn1 (2012) and Sn0 (2020), from this site are critical for distinguishing the proposed epoch, while an additional core Sn2 is presented to support main evidence....

In the last decades, climate and human activities significantly affected ecosystems, particularly in mountain areas. Whereas the Alps have been extensively studied for palaeoclimatic reconstructions, little information is available about ecological changes, especially in the Southeastern Alps. This study presents a palaeoclimatic and palaeoecologic...

The Białowieża Primeval Forest is one of the most pristine forested and peatland areas in Europe, as recognized by its status as the World Biosphere Reserve. Palaeoecological analyzes offer the possibility of establishing a record of ecosystem change over time, and therefore setting reference conditions for their assessment, protection and restorat...

High-latitude peatlands are changing rapidly in response to climate change, including permafrost thaw. Here, we reconstruct hydrological conditions since the seventeenth century using testate amoeba data from 103 high-latitude peat archives. We show that 54% of the peatlands have been drying and 32% have been wetting over this period, illustrating...

Human impact on Central European forests dates back thousands of years. In this study we reanalyzed 36 published pollen data sets with robust chronologies from Polish Lowlands to determine the patterns of large‑scale forest decline after the Migration Period (fourth to sixth century CE). The study revealed substantial heterogeneity in the old‑growt...

As one of the worlds' most important carbon stocks, peatlands must be protected and restored. Paleoecology can be regarded as an important tool in peatland restoration and management; as decision making is a complex and intricate task, it should consider the long-term perspective of ecosystem development.

Sedimentary charcoal records are widely used to reconstruct regional changes in fire regimes through time in the geological past. Existing global compilations are not geographically comprehensive and do not provide consistent metadata for all sites. Furthermore, the age models provided for these records are not harmonised and many are based on olde...

The Black Death (1347–1352 ce ) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe’s population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic’s causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis ), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on...

Peatlands perform many important ecosystem functions at both the local and global scale, including hydrologic and climatic regulation. Although peatlands often act as climatic microrefugia, they have rarely been the subject of long-term microclimatic studies. In this study, we aimed to compare the local climatic conditions of a mid-forest mire to t...

Global warming has compelled to strengthen the resilience of European forests. Due to repeated droughts and heatwaves, weakened trees become vulnerable to insect outbreaks, pathogen invasions, and strong winds. This study combines high-resolution analysis of a 100-year-old high-resolution peat archive synthesized from the Martwe peatland in Poland...

Zmniejszające się zasoby wodne w lasach są efektem wpływu człowieka na klimat i ekosystemy ze szczególnym punktem krytycznym w mijających 50 latach. Tysiąc lat temu Polskę pokrywała pierwotna puszcza. Wraz z rozwojem Państwa Polskiego wzrastało zapotrzebowanie na drewno, przez to następowały progresywne wylesienia. Wraz z utratą drzew postępowała c...

Sedimentary charcoal records are widely used to reconstruct regional changes in fire regimes through time in the geological past. Existing global compilations are not geographically comprehensive and do not provide consistent metadata for all sites. Furthermore, the age models provided for these records are not harmonised and many are based on olde...

Peatlands are important records of past environmental changes. Based on a multiproxy analysis, the main factors influencing the evolution of a peatland can be divided into autogenic and allogenic. Among the important allogenic factors, apart from climate change, are deforestation and drainage, which are directly associated with human impact. Numero...

Mountain regions harbour high biodiversity; however, in numerous areas, they are strongly degraded by human activity. Our study reconstructs the development of the submontane forest belt (400 and 650 m a.s.l.) in the Beskid Wyspowy Mountains (Western Carpathians, Central Europe) affected by climate, humans, fire, and parasitic fungi during the Holo...

The Black Death is the most reknown pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe's population. However, despite the advances in ancient DNA research that allowed for the successful identification of the pandemic's causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death is still limited, based prima...

Testate amoebae (TA) are a common and diverse group of protists and are especially abundant in peatlands. The structure of peatland TA communities is well correlated to surface moisture and water table depth (WTD). For that reason, TA are widely used as proxy indicators in ecological and palaeoecological studies. Peatlands are abundant across Asia,...

Landslide mountain fens formed in landslide depressions are dynamic environments as their development is disturbed by a number of factors, for example, landslides, slopewash, and surface run-off. These processes lead to the accumulation of mineral material and wood in peat. Disturbed peatlands are interesting archives of past environmental changes,...

During European states’ development, various past societies utilized natural resources, but their impact was not uniformly spatially and temporally distributed. Considerable changes resulted in landscape fragmentation, especially during the Middle Ages. Changes in state advances that affected the local economy significantly drove trajectories of ec...

This review provides a synthesis of current knowledge on the morphological and functional traits of testate amoebae, a polyphyletic group of protists commonly used as proxies of past hydrological changes in paleoecological investigations from peatland, lake sediment and soil archives. A trait-based approach to understanding testate amoebae ecology...

Wildfire occurrence is influenced by climate, vegetation and human activities. A key challenge for understanding the risk of fires is quantifying the mediating effect of vegetation on fire regimes. Here, we explore the relative importance of Holocene land cover, land use, dominant functional forest type, and climate dynamics on biomass burning in t...

Wildfire occurrence is influenced by climate, vegetation and human activities. A key challenge for understanding the risk of fires is quantifying the mediating effect of vegetation on fire regimes. Here, we explore the relative importance of Holocene land cover, land use, dominant functional forest type, and climate dynamics on biomass burning in t...

Lowering of the water table and substantial drying are observed in peatlands worldwide. A significant drying of European peatlands in the last 200–300 years influenced the vegetation, lowered carbon storage potential in peatlands, and modified microbial diversity. Here, we reconstructed in high resolution hydrological changes, local and extra-local...

In this article, we aim to decipher the effect of fire on the changes in the forest composition during the past ca. 10,700 years in the lower montane zone of the Polish Western Carpathians (Beskid Makowski Mountains, Central Europe). The results revealed that during the Early Holocene, the Ulmus population (a fire-intolerant taxon) was well-establi...

We explored past critical transitions in a peatland located in N Poland using a densely dated (x 44 14 C dates and x26 210 Pb), high-resolution multi-proxy profile. A 6500-year record was supported by a very robust age-depth model. Changes in land use, climate and carbon sequestration in northern Poland were investigated using a range of biotic pro...

Climate warming and human impacts are thought to be causing peatlands to dry, potentially converting them from sinks to sources of carbon. However, it is unclear whether the hydrological status of peatlands has moved beyond their natural envelope. Here we show that European peatlands have undergone substantial, widespread drying during the last ~30...

We tested the robustness of three previously published age-depth models by supplementing them with five new ⁠14C AMS dates. The age-models were calculated for profiles retrieved from ombrotrophic peatlands in northern Poland (Bagno Kusowo, Gązwa, and Mechacz Wielki bogs). For the Bagno Kusowo and Mechacz Wielki bogs, the addition of new dates did n...

In recent decades, it has been observed that most forest fires in Europe were caused by people. Extreme droughts, which are more often prolonged, can increase the risk of forest fires, not only in southern Europe but also, in Central Europe. Nonetheless, catastrophic fire events are not well recognized in the Central European Lowlands (CEL), where...

Unveiling past tipping points is a prerequisite for a better understanding of how individual species and entire ecosystems will respond to future climate change. Such knowledge is key for the implementation of biodiversity conservation. We identify the relationships between peatland vegetation and hydrological conditions over the past 2000 years us...

Compared to boreal or Mediterranean biomes, the influence of fire on peatlands in Central Europe is not well studied. We aim to provide first analysis of statistically significant charcoal-inferred fire events from a peatland from central European lowlands, spanning the period of the last 650 years, and define peatland vegetation and microbial trai...

The article presents the importance of palaeoecology for the study of economic history, historical geography and environmental history. The text introduces the methodological possibilities of palaeoecology. We pay attention to the unused potential of high resolution palaeoecology. By using natural archives (sediments of lakes and peatlands), we are...

Fire is a natural component of global biogeochemical cycles and closely related to changes in human land use. Whereas climate-fuel relationships seem to drive both global and subcontinental fire regimes, human-induced fires are prominent mainly on a local scale. Furthermore, the basic assumption that relates humans and fire regimes in terms of popu...

This report summarizes the outcome of the PAGES Global Paleofire Working Group workshop 2017 that took place in Montreal, Canada-Paleofire knowledge for current and future ecosystem management. The workshop aimed to (1) discuss the importance of past fire or paleofire research, focused on long-term influence of fire on the environments worldwide, i...

The carbon sink potential of peatlands depends on the balance between carbon uptake by plants and microbial decomposition. The rates of both these processes will increase with warming but it remains unclear which will dominate the global peatland response. Here we examine the global relationship between peatland carbon accumulation rates during the...

In the version of this Review Article originally published, ref. 10 was mistakenly cited instead of ref. 107 at the end of the sentence: “This complexity of residual ice cover makes it likely that HTM warming was regional, rather than global, and its peak warmth thus had different timing in different locations.” In addition, for ref. 108, Scientifi...

Over the past 3.5 million years, there have been several intervals when climate conditions were warmer than during the pre-industrial Holocene. Although past intervals of warming were forced differently than future anthropogenic change, such periods can provide insights into potential future climate impacts and ecosystem feedbacks, especially over...

A major debate concerns the questions of when and to what extent humans affected regional landscapes, especially land cover and associated geomorphological dynamics, significantly beyond natural variability. Fire is both, a natural component of many climate zones and ecosystems around the globe and also closely related to human land cover change. H...

The Serteya region is situated in Western Russia. Main relief forms were formed during the Valdai (Vistulian) Glaciation. Most characteristic are moraine plains and hills of a glacial origin, glaciofluvial plains and subglacial channels. The main research axis is Serteyka River valley. Serteya kettle hole peatland, which is located in the immediate...

The Central European area has been extensively studied using qualitative reconstruction techniques focusing on the development of peatlands in the past; however, research based on quantitative techniques is still lacking, especially in relation to highlands and mountainous areas. In this study, we focused on the hydrological changes and human-induc...

The area of Poland is not considered to be fire-prone, both currently and historically. For this reason, studies on the past fire activity in Poland are not extensive and limited to only a few single case studies. Fire activity is predicted to increase in many areas of the world due to progressing climate change, as predicted by various climatic mo...

Fire is a critical component of many ecosystems and, as predicted by various climate models, fire activity may increase significantly in the following years due to climate change. Therefore, knowledge about the past fire activity of various ecosystems is highly important for future nature conservation purposes. We present results of high-resolution...

Abstrakt. Przed zwiększoną wycinką lasów w średniowieczu torfowiska w Polsce znajdowały się w stanie naturalnym akumulując znaczne ilości węgla. Przez większość holocenu (ostatnie 10 650 lat) lasy stanowiły parasol ochronny dla torfowisk. Wraz z postępującym otwarciem krajobrazu została zaburzona pierwotna dynamika hydrologiczna większości obiektów...

Untangling the relationships between morphology and phylogeny is key to building a reliable taxonomy, but is especially challenging for protists, where the existence of cryptic or pseudocryptic species makes finding relevant discriminant traits difficult. Here we use Hyalosphenia papilio (a testate amoeba) as a model species to investigate the cont...

Despite the discovery of cryptotephra layers in over 100 peatlands across northern Europe, Holocenecryptotephra layers have not previously been reported from Polish peatlands. Here we present the first Holocenetephra findings from two peatlands in northern Poland. At Bagno Kusowo peatland we identify the most easterlyoccurrence of the AD 860 B tephra...

Disturbances affecting peatlands, such as fire and peat extraction, often cause water table lowering, with long lasting effects on local microbial communities and biogeochemistry. Also, prolonged droughts can lead to changes in ecosystem functioning, shifts in vegetation structure, and influence microbial diversity and food-webs. As a result, distu...

Testate amoebae (TA) are microorganisms abundant in wetlands all over the world. They play an important role in peatlands where they are top predators in the microbial food web. TA are used in palaeoecology to quantitatively reconstruct changes in water table depth over time. In the presented study we explored the use of functional traits of TA as...

As human impact have been increasing strongly over the last decades, it is crucial to distinguish human-induced dust sources from natural ones in order to define the boundary of a newly proposed epoch - the Anthropocene. Here, we track anthropogenic signatures and natural geochemical anomalies in the Mukhrino peatland, Western Siberia. Human activi...