Vegetation
History
Pollen in peat comes from the same types
of plant that grow now – 10000 years may seem
like a long time, but it isn’t long enough for
plants or animals to evolve significantly. So we know
from studying modern plants what the plants in the
pollen record looked like, how much pollen they
produce and what conditions they prefer to grow in.
By combining this modern information with old pollen,
like the pollen grains preserved in bogs,
palynologists can build up a picture of the past
plant communities. This is sometimes called vegetation
history.
For example, this is what Greenhead Moss
looked like when we sampled the bog:
Greenhead Moss before
restoration.
And this is a simplified representation
of the pollen signal in the surface mosses from near
to where we studied the fossil (old) pollen:
Piechart of modern
'pollen rain'
So birch makes up 53% of the pollen
rain falling on the bog here, with 18% grass
pollen and 7% heather pollen.
A palynologist would interpret this
pollen signal as an open birch wood, with an
understorey of grass and heather. This is a close
match to the vegetation in the photograph. The most
important types of herb pollen suggest that the area
was quite heavily disturbed because they are mostly
weeds. We know this is true too.
But this is really the end result of
pollen research and this is how we there...
Being a bog detective>
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