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The impact of climate changes during the Holocene on vegetation in northern French Guiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Vincent Freycon ,
Marion Krencker ,
Dominique Schwartz ,
Robert Nasi  and
Damien Bonal
Vincent Freycon*
Affiliation:
CIRAD, UR Dynamique forestière, Campus de Baillarguet, TA C-37, F-34398 Montpellier cedex 5, France
Marion Krencker
Affiliation:
Université de Strasbourg, LIVE, ERL 7230, 3 rue de l'Argonne, F-67083 Strasbourg cedex, France
Dominique Schwartz
Affiliation:
Université de Strasbourg, LIVE, ERL 7230, 3 rue de l'Argonne, F-67083 Strasbourg cedex, France
Robert Nasi
Affiliation:
CIFOR, P.O. Box 0113 BOCBD, I-16000 Bogor, Indonesia
Damien Bonal
Affiliation:
INRA, UMR Ecofog, BP 709, F-97387 Kourou cedex, French Guiana
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +33 4 67 59 37 33.E-mail address:vincent.freycon@cirad.fr (V. Freycon).
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Abstract

The impact of climatic changes that occurred during the last glacial maximum and the Holocene on vegetation changes in the Amazon Basin and the Guiana Shield are still widely debated. The aim of our study was to investigate whether major changes in vegetation (i.e. transitions between rainforests and C4 savannas) occurred in northern French Guiana during the Holocene. We measured variations in the ä13C of soil organic matter at eight sites now occupied by forest or savannah. The forest sites were selected to cover two regions (forest refugia and peneplains) which are thought to have experienced different intensities of disturbance during the latest Pleistocene and the Holocene. We found that none of the forest sites underwent major disturbances during the Holocene, i.e. they were not replaced by C4 savannahs or C4 forest savannahs for long periods. Our results thus suggest that tropical rainforests in northern French Guiana were resilient to drier climatic conditions during the Holocene. Nevertheless, geographical and vertical variations in the 13C of SOM were compatible with minor changes in vegetation, variations in soil processes or in soil physical properties.

Keywords

HoloceneVegetation changeFrench GuianaCarbon isotope compositionSoil organic matter
Type
Short paper
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , March 2010 , pp. 220 - 225
Copyright
University of Washington

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