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Exploring the ecological history of a tropical agroforestry landscape using fossil pollen and charcoal analysis from four sites in Western Ghats, India

Exploring the ecological history of a tropical agroforestry landscape using fossil pollen and charcoal analysis from four sites in Western Ghats, India
Exploring the ecological history of a tropical agroforestry landscape using fossil pollen and charcoal analysis from four sites in Western Ghats, India
Contrary to expectations, some human modified landscapes are considered to sustain both human activities and biodiversity over the long-term. Agroforestry systems are among these landscapes where crops are planted under native shade trees. In this context, ancient agroforestry systems can provide insight into how farmers managed the landscape over time. Such insight can help to quantify the extent to which tropical forests (especially habitat-specialist trees) are responding to local and landscape level management. Here, we extracted fossil pollen (indicator of past vegetation changes) and macroscopic charcoal (indicator of biomass burning) from four forest hollows’ sedimentary sequences in an ancient agroforestry system in Western Ghats, India. We used a mixed-modelling approach and a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to determine past trajectories of forest change and species composition dynamics for the last 900 years. In addition, we reconstructed the long-term forest canopy dynamics and examined the persistence of habitat-specialist trees over time. Our results show that the four sites diverged to a surprising degree in both taxa composition and dynamics. However, despite these differences, forest has persisted over 900 years under agricultural activities within agroforestry systems. This long-term analysis highlights the importance of different land-use legacies as a framework to increase the effectiveness of management across tropical agricultural lands.
1432-9840
45-55
Nogué, Sandra
5b464cff-a158-481f-8b7f-647c93d7a034
Tovar, Carolina
523ee885-27df-44f6-a37f-2c55ba08a75e
Bhagwat, Shonil A.
b6bbb9f0-ab50-476d-95a6-7078fee0c091
Finsinger, Walter
3092724e-9888-4f8d-8b80-2ae6ecf179d1
Willis, Kathy J.
5a442cde-a2dc-4046-be36-c00017fd47db
Nogué, Sandra
5b464cff-a158-481f-8b7f-647c93d7a034
Tovar, Carolina
523ee885-27df-44f6-a37f-2c55ba08a75e
Bhagwat, Shonil A.
b6bbb9f0-ab50-476d-95a6-7078fee0c091
Finsinger, Walter
3092724e-9888-4f8d-8b80-2ae6ecf179d1
Willis, Kathy J.
5a442cde-a2dc-4046-be36-c00017fd47db

Nogué, Sandra, Tovar, Carolina, Bhagwat, Shonil A., Finsinger, Walter and Willis, Kathy J. (2018) Exploring the ecological history of a tropical agroforestry landscape using fossil pollen and charcoal analysis from four sites in Western Ghats, India. Ecosystems, 21 (1), 45-55. (doi:10.1007/s10021-017-0132-1).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Contrary to expectations, some human modified landscapes are considered to sustain both human activities and biodiversity over the long-term. Agroforestry systems are among these landscapes where crops are planted under native shade trees. In this context, ancient agroforestry systems can provide insight into how farmers managed the landscape over time. Such insight can help to quantify the extent to which tropical forests (especially habitat-specialist trees) are responding to local and landscape level management. Here, we extracted fossil pollen (indicator of past vegetation changes) and macroscopic charcoal (indicator of biomass burning) from four forest hollows’ sedimentary sequences in an ancient agroforestry system in Western Ghats, India. We used a mixed-modelling approach and a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to determine past trajectories of forest change and species composition dynamics for the last 900 years. In addition, we reconstructed the long-term forest canopy dynamics and examined the persistence of habitat-specialist trees over time. Our results show that the four sites diverged to a surprising degree in both taxa composition and dynamics. However, despite these differences, forest has persisted over 900 years under agricultural activities within agroforestry systems. This long-term analysis highlights the importance of different land-use legacies as a framework to increase the effectiveness of management across tropical agricultural lands.

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nogue_etal_ecosystems_pure - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 16 February 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 3 April 2017
Published date: January 2018
Organisations: Palaeoenvironment Laboratory (PLUS)

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 406378
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/406378
ISSN: 1432-9840
PURE UUID: 8d237e25-ac99-444a-afdb-b56819f05c2c
ORCID for Sandra Nogué: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0093-4252

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Date deposited: 10 Mar 2017 10:46
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:03

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Contributors

Author: Sandra Nogué ORCID iD
Author: Carolina Tovar
Author: Shonil A. Bhagwat
Author: Walter Finsinger
Author: Kathy J. Willis

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