The response of Central European vegetation to rapid climate change during the late Quaternary period (Eemian to Holocene) is assessed by data from the new pollen record of Füramoos, southwestern Germany. This record represents the longest late Quaternary pollen record north of the Alps as currently known. Its high degree of completeness allows detailed correlations with Greenland ice cores and sea–surface temperature records from the North Atlantic. Our data show that if climate deteriorations were not long or severe enough to extirpate refugia of arboreal taxa north of the Alps such as during marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 5 (i.e., Würm Stadial A, Stadial B, and Stadial C), reforestation with the onset of warmer conditions in Central Europe occurred on a centennial scale. If arboreal taxa became completely extinct north of the Alps such as during MIS 4 (i.e., Würm Stadial D), several thousand years were necessary for the reimmigration from refugia situated in regions south of the Alps. Thus, Dansgaard–Oeschger interstades (DOIS) 24 to 20 and 15 to 11 are expressed in Central European pollen records, whereas DOIS 19 to 16 are not recorded due to migration lags.

The pollen record at Area Longa is the westernmost sequence available for investigation of the last glaciation in continental Europe. It is located in a region, NW Iberia, for which data from times earlier than the late glacial period are scarce. It comprises a series of exposed limnetic levels that lie above an Eemian (Oxygen Isotope Stage [OIS] 5e) beach and are separated by inorganic layers. The oldest limnetic level (Level I), attributed to the early glacial period (OIS 5a to OIS 5d), shows a dominance of woodland with high proportions of Fagus pollen and is tentatively identified with St. Germain I. The lower pleniglacial (OIS 4) Level II records a stadial landscape of grassland and shrub. Level III, from the pleniglacial interstade (OIS 3), reflects a complex period in which three warmer woodland phases alternated with periods of more open vegetation. This cyclical behavior correlates with the ice core isotope record and with the general tendencies observed in other Würmian pollen records, but the composition of our pollen profiles differs from those observed in these other records. In NW Iberia, the dominant trees were deciduous taxa, not conifers. Of particular note is the presence of lowland Fagus woodlands during the pre-Würm, and the occurrence of Carpinus considerably farther west than the boundary of its current distribution in the Iberian Peninsula.