Climate change and human impacts on aquatic communities at Etoliko Lagoon in western Greece.

The Etoliko Lagoon in western Greece has experienced extensive human modification since the 20th century, both on the surrounding land and in the aquatic environment. To examine human impacts and disentangle climatic from anthropogenic changes, we present a suite of biomarker records that span the past two centuries (∼1790-2011). Specifically, we use terrigenous (n-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and phytosterols) and aquatic (dinosterol, brassicasterol, cholesterol, and stigmasterol) biomarkers to document changes in nutrient inputs, combustion, and algal productivity.

Persistent influence of precession on northern ice sheet variability since the early Pleistocene.

Prior to ~1 million years ago (Ma), variations in global ice volume were dominated by changes in obliquity; however, the role of precession remains unresolved. Using a record of North Atlantic ice rafting spanning the past 1.7 million years, we find that the onset of ice rafting within a given glacial cycle (reflecting ice sheet expansion) consistently occurred during times of decreasing obliquity whereas mass ice wasting (ablation) events were consistently tied to minima in precession.

Palynological data for the Late Glacial and Holocene (14.5-0 ka BP) from Füramoos, Southern Germany.

We here present high-resolution palynological data from the Füramoos peat bog, located in the alpine foreland of Southern Germany. The data represent raw pollen counts of major arboreal pollen as well as agricultural indicator taxa for the Late Glacial and Holocene (14.5 ka BP to present) at Füramoos with an average temporal resolution of 100 years (50 years during critical intervals).

1.36 million years of Mediterranean forest refugium dynamics in response to glacial-interglacial cycle strength.

The sediment record from Lake Ohrid (Southwestern Balkans) represents the longest continuous lake archive in Europe, extending back to 1.36 Ma. We reconstruct the vegetation history based on pollen analysis of the DEEP core to reveal changes in vegetation cover and forest diversity during glacial-interglacial (G-IG) cycles and early basin development.