noaa-pollen-5973 Williams et al. 2004 Late Quaternary North American Vegetation Dynamics Data Williams, J.W.; Shuman, B.N.; Webb, T.; Bartlein, P.J.; Leduc, P.L. Williams et al. 2004 Late Quaternary North American Vegetation Dynamics Data 2003-11-14 NCDC-Paleoclimatology ONLINE Files Pending https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/5973 Investigator J.W. Williams Investigator B.N. Shuman Investigator T. Webb Investigator P.J. Bartlein Investigator P.L. Leduc earth science paleoclimate pollen geoscientificInformation Complete 25 70 -170 -50 Continent North America North America>LATITUDE >LONGITUDE None Please cite original publication, online resource, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, title, online resource, and date accessed. The appearance of external links associated with a dataset does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of external Web sites or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities, the Department of Commerce/NOAA does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. These links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this Department of Commerce/NOAA Web site. English DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data DATA Center Contact Bruce Bauer bruce.a.bauer@noaa.gov paleo@noaa.gov 303-497-6280 303-497-6513

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Boulder CO 80305-3328 USA online ASCII John W. Williams, Bryan N. Shuman, Thompson Webb III, Patrick J. Bartlein, Phillip L. Leduc 2004 Ecological Monographs 74 2 309-344

This paper integrates the mapping of late-Quaternary biomes with palynological evidence for individualistic species responses to environmental change. We document vegetation history in boreal and eastern North America for the past 21,000 calendar years (21 ka), reconstructing past vegetation from fossil pollen evidence at ecological resolutions ranging from individual plant taxa to biomes. At these scales, climatic control of vegetation change is exerted at the level of individual species, from which higher-order properties of the vegetation emerge. Vegetation distribution and composition were relatively stable during full-glacial times (21-17 ka) and the mid- to late Holocene (7-0.5 ka), but changed rapidly during the late glacial and early Holocene (16-8 ka) and after 0.5 ka. Most plant distributions shifted northward, but taxa also moved east or west as, for example, the area of high abundances for spruce, pine, and other cold-tolerants expanded from eastern North America into central and western Canada. Modern associations such as beech-hemlock and spruce-alder-birch date to the early Holocene, whereas other associations common to the late-glacial (e.g. spruce- sedge-ash-hornbeam) no longer exist. Biomes are dynamic entities that have changed in distribution, composition, and structure since the last ice age and before. Distinct suites of biomes grew during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. The pollen-based biome reconstructions are able to capture the major features of late-Quaternary vegetation but downplay the magnitude and variety of vegetational responses to climate change by 1) limiting apparent land-cover change to ecotones, 2) masking internal variations in biome composition, and 3) obscuring the migrations and changes in abundance among individual taxa. The compositional differences between full-glacial and recent biomes of the same type are similar to or greater than the spatial heterogeneity in the composition of present-day biomes, both for individual plant taxa and for plant life forms (conifers, broad-leaved trees, and herbs). The spatial and temporal heterogeneity in biome composition allows maps of biomes to accommodate individualistic changes among taxa but masks climatically important variations in taxonomic composition as well as significant variations in vegetation structure. STUDY NOTES: The Pollen Viewer web display program has been removed due to Java security issues. The Pollen Viewer images are instead available as individual snapshots or as animated GIF files at the "Pollen Viewer Image Folder" link above. A new version of Pollen Viewer is planned for the Neotoma Paleoecology Database website.

GET DATA https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/pollen/viewer/ Data Folder; Pollen Viewer Image Folder GET DATA https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/pollen/na_gridded/readme_na_gridded.txt GET DATA https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/pollen/na_gridded/ USA/NOAA DIF Version 9.8.4 2018-12-11 2018-12-11