DINAMO

DINAMO

 

Dinámica de la vegetación mediterránea en el N.E. de la Península Ibérica durante los últimos 135,000 años: estructura, cronología y pautas de respuesta vegetal frente a diversos tipos de cambio. DINAMO


Mediterranean vegetation dynamic in northeastern Iberia during the last 135,000 years: structure, chronology and vegetation response to different type of changes


Plan Nacional de I+D+I. CGL2009-07992
2009-2012
Research Manager: Penélope González-Sampériz


DYNAMO is aimed at the palaeoecological investigation of the patterns and processes of vegetation changes in northeastern Iberia during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. To accomplish this central goal, this project is based on the high-resolution palynological study of the lacustrine sedimentary record of El Cañizar de Villarquemado (Teruel), an extraordinarily long sequence up to 72 m thick embracing the last 135,000 years of environmental change.


The main objectives are:


  • to describe vegetation changes during the last two interglacials (Eemian and Holocene).

  • to discuss in a palaeobiological perspective, why the maximum advance of glaciers and the onset of deglaciation in the southern European mountains is so far anticipating the Last Glacial Maximum at a global scale.

  • to investigate the vegetation responses to North Atlantic rapid climatic changes during the last glaciation (Heinrich events, Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles).

  • to understand the climate-vegetation relationships, especially from the structural and compositional perspectives, during the stadial-interstadial and glacial-interglacial periods, in both the suborbital and orbital scales.

  • to locate and characterize glacial refugia for woody mesothermophilous and Mediterranean plant species at inland Iberia.

  • to elucidate the role and interactions of fire, climate and human activities in the evolution of plant formations from Mediterranean Iberia.