Lateglacial summer temperatures in the Northwest European lowlands: a chironomid record from Hijkermeer, the Netherlands
Introduction
In the North Atlantic region the Lateglacial period (ca 14 700–11 700 yr BP) was characterized by major climatic changes, including the initial warming at the beginning of the Lateglacial, a number of centennial scale cooling episodes during the Lateglacial interstadial, the abrupt temperature decrease at the beginning of the Younger Dryas cold episode, and the rapid warming at the Younger Dryas/Holocene transition (e.g. Lotter et al., 1992, Lotter et al., 2000; Björck et al., 1998; von Grafenstein et al., 1999; Heiri and Millet, 2005). As a consequence of these climatic changes European landscapes experienced major vegetation shifts. In continental Northwest Europe these vegetation changes consisted mainly of transitions between Betula (birch) and Pinus (pine) dominated woodlands during the Lateglacial interstadial and a shift to more open vegetation during the Younger Dryas cold interval (e.g. Hoek, 2001). This pattern of vegetation change resembles the vegetation development in other parts of the continent, such as Central Europe and the British Isles (Lotter et al., 1992; Ammann et al., 1996; Jones et al., 2002). In these regions oxygen isotopes measured on lake marls or ostracod valves were used to infer past temperature shifts, often in the same sediment records that were studied for pollen and plant macrofossils (Lotter et al., 1992; Marshall et al., 2002; Magny et al., 2006). As a consequence, the relationship between past vegetation and climatic change is comparatively well understood (e.g. Ammann et al., 2000). For example, for the northern Swiss Plateau it is now generally accepted that a short-lived cold period (the Aegelsee Oscillation) immediately preceded the transition from Betula-dominated vegetation to Pinus-dominated woodlands (e.g. Lotter et al., 1992). A second centennial-scale cold episode (the Gerzensee Oscillation) seemed to have a distinct effect on the local vegetation in some parts of Central Europe (e.g. Ammann et al., 2000; Litt et al., 2001; Magny et al., 2006), but was not associated with the same landscape-scale change in vegetation as the Aegelsee Oscillation. Despite some attempts at oxygen isotope analysis on lacustrine sediments from the Northwest European lowlands (Hoek and Bohncke, 2001) this is only possible for selected Lateglacial sediments and for restricted intervals with elevated sedimentary carbonate content. Hence, there still remains uncertainty about the relationship between Lateglacial climatic change and the vegetation development in this region. Furthermore, evidence for the presence of short-lived (i.e. centennial-scale) cooling episodes in the Northwest European lowlands is still ambiguous. Although major climatic shifts such as the transition between the Lateglacial interstadial and the Younger Dryas cooling episode are well documented by the available palaeoclimatic evidence (Hoek and Bohncke, 2002), minor Lateglacial climatic oscillations have mainly been described based on pollen records. The pollen-inferred vegetation changes during these episodes have been interpreted as indicating either a short period of cooler or more continental climate (van Geel and Kolstrup, 1978; Hoek and Bohncke, 2002). Consequently, the present palaeoclimatic interpretation of the Lateglacial in the Northwest European lowlands relies on a combination of different lines of evidence and on the correlation with palaeoclimatic records from adjacent regions, whereas high-resolution, quantitative palaeotemperature records independent of past vegetation change are still lacking.
The fossil remains of Chironomidae (non-biting midges) have proven to be excellent indicators for reconstructing past summer temperature variability from lacustrine sediments (Brooks, 2006; Walker and Cwynar, 2006). Chironomid larvae are abundant in lakes, living in the sediments in the lake center or on substrates such as rocks, wood, or aquatic macrophytes in the littoral zone. The distribution of chironomid assemblages is strongly related to summer temperature in the modern environment (e.g. Lotter et al., 1997; Brooks and Birks, 2001; Larocque et al., 2001; Heiri and Lotter, 2005). Moreover, fossils of chironomid larvae preserve well and remain identifiable in lake sediments. Hence, chironomid-based transfer-functions can be used to reconstruct past summer temperature variability. In Europe, chironomid-summer temperature transfer-functions have been developed for the Alpine region (Heiri et al., 2003; Heiri and Lotter, 2005) and Scandinavia (e.g. Olander et al., 1999; Brooks and Birks, 2001; Larocque et al., 2001). They have successfully been applied for reconstructing Lateglacial temperatures in Norway (Brooks and Birks, 2000b), England (Bedford et al., 2004), Scotland (Brooks and Birks, 2000a), Switzerland (Heiri et al., 2003), Northeast Italy (Heiri et al., 2007) and the French Jura Mountains (Heiri and Millet, 2005; Magny et al., 2006). Most of these chironomid-temperature transfer-functions and reconstructions are from mountainous regions. Mountain areas provide lake ecosystems with a wide range of summer temperatures that can be studied for transfer-function development. The short distances between lakes exposed to different temperature regimes also ensure that the chironomid fauna of individual lakes can rapidly respond to changing climate, since chironomid taxa adapted to warmer or colder conditions do not have to colonize lakes from great distances. In contrast, chironomid-based temperature reconstructions are not available yet from the Northwest European lowlands, even though chironomid-based temperature records could provide vegetation-independent temperature reconstructions from this region where oxygen-isotope records can only be produced with difficulty.
Here we present a high-resolution chironomid record and a quantitative chironomid-based temperature reconstruction from Hijkermeer, a small lake in Drenthe, The Netherlands. Hijkermeer was one of the first localities from which Lateglacial vegetation changes had been documented for the Northwest European lowlands and the lake contains a sediment-record reaching back well into the Lateglacial interstadial (van der Hammen, 1949). In addition to chironomids, pollen were analyzed at a coarser temporal resolution to link the chironomid record to the established regional pollen zonation scheme, to provide an age assessment for the record, and to directly compare chironomid-inferred temperatures with Lateglacial vegetation change. Furthermore, diatom assemblages in the sediments were examined to provide supplementary information about the past lacustrine environments in Hijkermeer and constrain the palaeoecological interpretation of the chironomid record. Specifically, the aims of the study were: (1) to quantify Lateglacial summer temperature changes at Hijkermeer; (2) to provide evidence for the presence or absence of centennial-scale summer temperature fluctuations during the Lateglacial interstadial as described for Central Europe or the British Isles; and (3) to compare the vegetation development during the Lateglacial with the chironomid-based temperature reconstruction and to examine the records for evidence of climatic causes for abrupt vegetation changes during the Lateglacial interstadial.
Section snippets
Study site and fieldwork
Hijkermeer (52°53′N, 6°29′ E, 14 m a.s.l.) is a small pingo-remnant situated close to the town of Assen in the province of Drenthe, the Netherlands (Fig. 1A). The sediments of Hijkermeer were studied as early as 1948, providing the first unambiguous, pollen-based evidence for the presence of the Lateglacial interstadial in the Netherlands (van der Hammen, 1949). This study was based on a sediment core obtained from dry land on the western shore of the lake. We re-visited Hijkermeer in March 2003
Methods
Core segment HIJK-B7 was subsampled at 1 cm intervals. Sediment of 78 of these 1 cm slices was analyzed for fossil chironomids, sediment of 33 and 22 of the slices was analyzed for pollen and diatoms, respectively. Chironomid samples were pretreated for 2 h in 10% KOH solution and washed through a 100 μm sieve. Chironomid head capsules, other identifiable arthropod remains, and Characeae oogonia were hand-sorted from the sieving residue at 40× magnification and mounted on microscope slides in
Lithology
Core segment HIJK-B7 was characterized by several abrupt changes in sediment texture, organic matter content, and grain size (Fig. 2B). In the lowest part of the sequence sediments consisted of coarse sand (1121.5–1140 cm sediment depth). This was overlain by a layer of fine-grained, inorganic silty clay (1109.5–1121.5 cm). A thin sediment layer of clayey gyttja was apparent at 1108–1109.5 cm depth. Sediments between 1079.5 and 1108 cm consisted of fine detritus gyttja with high organic and low
Chironomid assemblages and palaeolimnology of Hijkermeer
The Lateglacial chironomid record of Hijkermeer is characterized by a number of distinct assemblage changes. Assemblages in the lowest part of the core are dominated by taxa that, in mid-latitudes, are at present typically found in subalpine lakes (Fig. 5). For example, C. anthracinus-type can be found in surface sediment samples from lakes covering an altitudinal gradient from <500 to over 2200 m a.s.l. in the Swiss Alps (Heiri, 2001). However, the taxon reaches its highest abundance in lakes
Summary and conclusions
During most of the Lateglacial period chironomid-inferred July air temperatures from Hijkermeer closely track temperature trends recorded by the Greenland ice core δ18O records and show a good agreement with other quantitative reconstructions of Lateglacial summer temperature from the Netherlands. This suggests that, even though the record is affected to some extent by non-analogue problems, chironomid assemblages at Hijkermeer have reacted sensitively to past climatic change and that the
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Ton van Druten and Steven Wonink for assistance during fieldwork, the Hengelvereniging Hijken for permission to core the Hijkermeer sediments, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. The research presented in this article was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)/Aard- en Levenswetenschappen (ALW) (Grant no. 813.02.006). This is Netherlands Research School of Sedimentary Geology (NSG) publication no.
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