‘ Islands ’ in Holocene forests : Implications for Forest Openness , Landscape Clearance and ‘ Culture-Steppe ’ Species
‘ Islands ’ in Holocene forests : Implications for Forest Openness , Landscape Clearance and ‘ Culture-Steppe ’ Species
复制标题
全新世森林中的“岛屿”：对森林开放、景观清理和“文化草原”物种的影响
DOI：
10.1179/146141004790734397
复制
发表时间：
2004
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
David N. Smith
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
David N. Smith
2004年1月收稿; 2004年2月接受修订稿。作者地址：Nicki怀特豪斯，考古学和古生态学学院，贝尔法斯特女王大学，贝尔法斯特BT 7 1 NN，北方尔爱尔兰，英国，电子邮件：n.怀特豪斯@ qub.ac.uk;大卫史密斯，考古学和古代研究所，伯明翰大学，Edgbaston，伯明翰B15 2 TT，英格兰，英国，电子邮件：d.n. bham.ac.uk摘要人类活动无疑对全新世森林生态系统产生了重大影响，植物和动物的同时扩张与被清除的景观和牧场有关，也被称为“文化草原”。然而，这种人为的观点可能低估了自生干扰（如风，火），或自生和人为过程的混合物，在全新世早期森林的贡献。昆虫学家长期以来一直认为，北欧原始森林的结构可能与牧场林地相似。这一观点得到了保护生物学家弗兰斯·维拉（Frans Vera）的支持，他最近强烈认为，大型食草动物在维持欧洲原始景观中的开放森林方面的作用被严重低估了。本文从化石无脊椎动物的角度回顾了这一争论，并着眼于几个全新世早期的昆虫组合。虽然木材类群在这一时期确实很重要，但在开放地区和草地上典型的物种和粪甲虫，通常与放牧动物的粪便有关，是许多早期林地动物群中的持久存在。我们还认为，火灾和其他自然干扰剂似乎发挥了重要的生态作用，在这些森林中，保持开放的地区，并在这些系统中创建开放的植被岛屿。然而，还需要更多的工作来确定食草动物的作用，但我们得出结论，昆虫化石对这一争论做出了重大贡献。这一证据在如何解释古生态记录方面具有根本意义，特别是环境考古学家和古生态学家，他们可能更感兴趣的是确定人类与环境的相互作用，而不是可能保存在古生态记录中的生态过程。
Received January 2004; revised manuscript accepted February 2004. Authors’ addresses: Nicki Whitehouse, School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK, Email: n.whitehouse@qub.ac.uk; David Smith, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England, UK, Email: d.n.smith@bham.ac.uk Abstract Human activity has undoubtedly had a major impact on Holocene forested ecosystems, with the concurrent expansion of plants and animals associated with cleared landscapes and pasture, also known as ‘culture-steppe’. However, this anthropogenic perspective may have underestimated the contribution of autogenic disturbance (e.g. wind-throw, fire), or a mixture of autogenic and anthropogenic processes, within early Holocene forests. Entomologists have long argued that the north European primary forest was probably similar in structure to pasture woodland. This idea has received support from the conservation biologist Frans Vera, who has recently strongly argued that the role of large herbivores in maintaining open forests in the primeval landscapes of Europe has been seriously underestimated. This paper reviews this debate from a fossil invertebrate perspective and looks at several early Holocene insect assemblages. Although wood taxa are indeed important during this period, species typical of open areas and grassland and dung beetles, usually associated with the dung of grazing animals, are persistent presences in many early woodland faunas. We also suggest that fire and other natural disturbance agents appear to have played an important ecological role in some of these forests, maintaining open areas and creating open vegetation islands within these systems. More work, however, is required to ascertain the role of grazing animals, but we conclude that fossil insects have a significant contribution to make to this debate. This evidence has fundamental implications in terms of how the palaeoecological record is interpreted, particularly by environmental archaeologists and palaeoecologists who may be more interested in identifying human-environment interactions rather than the ecological processes which may be preserved within palaeoecological records.