title: Glacial legacies on interglacial vegetation at the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition in NE Asia.
abstract: Broad-scale climate control of vegetation is widely assumed. Vegetation-climate lags are generally thought to have lasted no more than a few centuries. Here our palaeoecological study challenges this concept over glacial-interglacial timescales. Through multivariate analyses of pollen assemblages from Lake El'gygytgyn, Russian Far East and other data we show that interglacial vegetation during the Plio-Pleistocene transition mainly reflects conditions of the preceding glacial instead of contemporary interglacial climate. Vegetation-climate disequilibrium may persist for several millennia, related to the combined effects of permafrost persistence, distant glacial refugia and fire. In contrast, no effects from the preceding interglacial on glacial vegetation are detected. We propose that disequilibrium was stronger during the Plio-Pleistocene transition than during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period when, in addition to climate, herbivory was important. By analogy to the past, we suggest today's widespread larch ecosystem on permafrost is not in climate equilibrium. Vegetation-based reconstructions of interglacial climates used to assess atmospheric CO2-temperature relationships may thus yield misleading simulations of past global climate sensitivity.
authors.affiliation: Periglacial Research Section, Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Telegraphenberg A43, 14473 Potsdam, Germany.|Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University Potsdam, 14479 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Ulrike
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Herzschuh
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Postboks 7803, 5020 Bergen, Norway.|Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway.|Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
authors.forename: H John B
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Birks
authors.affiliation: Periglacial Research Section, Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Telegraphenberg A43, 14473 Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Laepple
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Cologne, 50674 Köln (Cologne), Germany.|Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Kazan Federal University, Kazan 420008, Russia.
authors.forename: Andrei
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Andreev
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Cologne, 50674 Köln (Cologne), Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Melles
authors.affiliation: Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003-9297, USA.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brigham-Grette