Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T19:10:58.428Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Late-Quaternary Vegetational Dynamics and Community Stability Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Paul A. Delcourt  and
Hazel R. Delcourt
Paul A. Delcourt
Affiliation:
Program for Quaternary Studies of the Southeastern United States, Department of Geological Sciences, and Graduate Program in Ecology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 USA
Hazel R. Delcourt
Affiliation:
Program for Quaternary Studies of the Southeastern United States, Department of Botany, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Defining the spatial and temporal limits of vegetational processes such as migration and invasion of established communities is a prerequisite to evaluating the degree of stability in plant communities through the late Quaternary. The interpretation of changes in boundaries of major vegetation types over the past 20,000 yr offers a complementary view to that provided by migration maps for particular plant taxa. North of approximately 43°N in eastern North America, continual vegetational disequilibrium has resulted from climatic change, soil development, and species migrations during postglacial times. Between 33° and 39°N, stable full-glacial vegetation was replaced by a relatively unstable vegetation during late-glacial climatic amelioration; stable interglacial vegetation developed there after about 9000 yr B.P. Late-Quaternary vegetation has been in dynamic equilibrium, with a relatively constant flora, south of 33°N on upland interfluves along the northern Gulf Coastal Plain, peninsular Florida, and west-central Mexico.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , March 1983 , pp. 265 - 271
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bernabo, J.C., Webb, T. III. 1977. Changing patterns in the Holocene pollen record of northeastern North America: A mapped summary. Quaternary Research 8. 64–96.Google Scholar
Bormann, F.H., Likens, G.E.. 1979. Pattern and Process in a Forested Ecosystem. Springer-Verlag, New York.Google Scholar
Botkin, D.B., Sobel, M.J.. 1975. Stability in time-varying ecosystems. American Naturalist 109. 625–646.Google Scholar
Braun, E.L.. 1974. Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America. Hafner, New York. (Originally published, 1950.).Google Scholar
Brunner, C.A.. 1982. Paleoceanography of surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico during the late Quaternary. Quaternary Research 17. 105–119.Google Scholar
Brunner, C.A., Cooley, J.D.. 1976. Circulation in the Gulf of Mexico during the last glacial maximum 18,000 years ago. Geological Society of America Bulletin 87. 681–686.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A.. 1966. Air masses, streamlines, and the boreal forest. Geographical Bulletin 8. 228–269.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Hare, F.K.. 1974. The climates of North America. Climates of North America, World Survey of Climatology. Bryson, R.A., Hare, F.K. Vol. II. Elsevier, New York. 1–47.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Wendland, W.M.. 1967. Tentative climatic patterns for some late glacial and postglacial episodes in central North America. Mayer-Oakes, W.J., Bryson, R.A., Hare, F.K.. Univ. of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg. 271–298.Google Scholar
Davis, M.B.. 1969. Climatic changes in Connecticut recorded by pollen deposition at Rogers Lake. Ecology 50. 409–422.Google Scholar
Davis, M.B.. 1976. Pleistocene biogeography of temperate deciduous forests. Geoscience and Man 13. 13–26.Google Scholar
Davis, M.B.. 1981. Quaternary history and the stability of forest communities. Forest Succession, Concepts and Application. West, D.C., Shugart, H.H., Botkin, D.B.. Springer-Verlag, New York. 132–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delcourt, H.R.. 1979. Late Quaternary vegetation history of the eastern Highland Rim and adjacent Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. Ecological Monographs 49. 255–280.Google Scholar
Delcourt, P.A.. 1980. Goshen Springs: Late Quaternary vegetation record for southern Alabama. Ecology 61. 371–386.Google Scholar
Delcourt, P.A., Delcourt, H.R.. 1979. Late Pleistocene and Holocene distributional history of the deciduous forest in the southeastern United States. Veroeffentlichungen des Geobotanischen Institutes der Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Stiftung Ruebel, in Zuerich 68. 79–107.Google Scholar
Delcourt, P.A., Delcourt, H.R.. 1981. Vegetation maps for eastern North America: 40,000 years B.P. to the present. Geobotany II. Romans, R.C.. Plenum, New York. 123–165.Google Scholar
Delcourt, H.R., Delcourt, P.A., Webb, T. III. 1983. Dynamic plant ecology: The spectrum of vegetational change in space and time. Quaternary Science Reviewsin press.Google Scholar
Kapp, R.O.. 1977. Paleoecology in Central Lower Michigan, Field Trip Guide. Paleoecology Section, Ecological Society of America.Google Scholar
McIntyre, A., Kipp, N.A., Be, A.W.H., Crowley, T., Kellogg, T., Gardner, J.V., Prell, W., Ruddiman, W.F.. 1976. Glacial North Atlantic 18,000 years ago: A CLIMAP reconstruction. Geological Society of America, Memoir 145. 43–76.Google Scholar
Pickett, S.T.A.. 1976. Succession: An evolutionary interpretation. American Naturalist 110. 107–119.Google Scholar
Romme, W.H., Knight, D.H.. 1982. Landscape diversity: The concept applied to Yellowstone Park. Bioscience 32. 664–670.Google Scholar
Sprugel, D.G., Bormann, F.H.. 1981. Natural disturbance and the steady state in high-altitude balsam fir forests. Science 211. 390–393.Google Scholar
Watts, W.A.. 1973. Rates of change and stability in vegetation in the perspective of long periods of time. Quaternary Plant Ecology. Birks, H.J.B., West, R.G.. J Wiley, New York. 195–206.Google Scholar
Watts, W.A.. 1975. A late Quaternary record of vegetation from Lake Annie, south-central Florida. Geology 3. 344–346.Google Scholar
Watts, W.A.. 1979. Late Quaternary vegetation of central Appalachia and the New Jersey coastal plain. Ecological Monographs 49. 427–469.Google Scholar
Watts, W.A., Bradbury, J.P.. 1982. Paleoecological studies at Lake Patzcuaro on the west-central Mexican Plateau and at Chalco in the Basin of Mexico. Quaternary Research 17. 56–70.Google Scholar
Watts, W.A., Stuiver, M.. 1980. Late Wisconsin climate of northern Florida and and the origin of species-rich deciduous forest. Science 210. 325–327.Google Scholar
Webb, T. III. 1981. The past 11,000 years of vegetational change in eastern North America. Bioscience 41. 501–506.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E. Jr.. 1968. History of the Prairie Peninsula. The Quaternary of Illinois. Bergstrom, R.E.Special Report 14 College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, Urbana. 78–88.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E. Jr.. 1980. Surge moraines of the Klutlan glacier, Yukon Territory, Canada: Origin, wastage, vegetation succession, lake development, and application to the late-glacial of Minnesota. Quaternary Research 14. 2–18.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E. Jr.. 1981. Vegetation east of the Rocky Mountains 18,000 years ago. Quaternary Research 15. 113–125.Google Scholar