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Late Pleistocene Temperature Depression and Vegetation Change in Ecuadorian Amazonia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Mark B. Bush ,
Paul A. Colinvaux ,
Michael C. Wiemann ,
Dolores R. Piperno  and
Kam-biu Liu
Mark B. Bush
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, The Ohio State University, 1735 Neil Ave., Columbus, Ohio, 43210 USA
Paul A. Colinvaux
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, The Ohio State University, 1735 Neil Ave., Columbus, Ohio, 43210 USA
Michael C. Wiemann
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803 USA
Dolores R. Piperno
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, P.O. Box 2072, Balboa, Panama
Kam-biu Liu
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803 USA Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803 USA
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Abstract

Paleoecological (pollen, phytolith, and wood) analyses of sediments, radiocarbon dated 33,000 to 26,000 yr B.P., from two sites in Ecuadorian Amazonia provide data that suggest a cooling of ca. 7.5°C below present in equatorial lowlands from 33,000 to 30,000 yr B.P. A period of warning followed in which novel species assemblages, a blend of montane and lowland floral components, persisted for at least 4000 years. These data of forest community change, from sites lying within the postulated glacial rain forest Napo refugium, provide the strongest paleoecological refutation of the refugial hypothesis yet obtained. The large temperature depression at ca. 30,000 yr B.P. allows the possibility that if maximum cooling at the equator was synchronous with the last glacial maximum (LGM) of the northern hemisphere, freezing temperatures would have been experienced in parts of lowland Amazonia between 25,000 and 18,000 B.P.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , November 1990 , pp. 330 - 345
Copyright
University of Washington

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