Two short pollen records from the late Holocene and pre last Glacial of Flinders Island, south eastern Australia
P. G. Ladd![https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7730-9685](/media/client/orcid_16x16.png)
A Environmental and Conservation Science, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia.
B Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria, Birdwood Avenue, South Yarra, Vic. 3141, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: p.ladd@murdoch.edu.au
Australian Journal of Botany - https://doi.org/10.1071/BT20026
Submitted: 8 March 2020 Accepted: 17 November 2020 Published online: 10 December 2020
Abstract
The Bass Strait islands are some of the few areas in Australia that were not occupied by humans at the time of European contact. There is archaeological evidence that Flinders Island at the eastern end of Bass Strait supported people until c. 4500 years ago but after that there is no evidence of human presence. Two previous pollen studies, covering the Holocene, from a swamp on the eastern side of the island were interpreted rather differently in terms of how influential humans were in their effects on the island’s vegetation. In this paper, two short pollen diagrams from very different places than the earlier studies are described. These add to the evidence of the type of vegetation on the island over the late Quaternary. One diagram covers only the last 1500 years and is from a 1-m deposit from near the highest peak on the island in the south. This shows that there has been little change over that time in the vegetation around the site and there has been no influence of fire in the area. By contrast, a thin peat deposit, overlying lake sediments containing freshwater mollusc shells and Characeae oogonia, from Killiecrankie Bay in the north of the island dated at c. 34 000 14C calibrated (cal) before present (BP) shows evidence of fire. The vegetation at the time was not similar to the vegetation during the Holocene with little representation of eucalypts but prominence of shrubby species (Leptospermum, Melaleuca) and herbaceous taxa such as Restionaceae and Asteraceae, particularly the Pleistocene Asteraceae pollen type. The vegetation on the eastern Bassian isthmus at that time was likely to have had less tree cover than in the Holocene and was more heath-dominated.
Keywords: Austropygus, Bassian isthmus, Bass Strait Islands, carbon dates, 14C date, Flinders Island, pollen record, prehistoric ecology, Tasmania, vegetation stasis.
References
Baker PJ, Simkin R, Pappas N, McLeod A, McKenzie M (2012) Fire on the mountain: a multi-scale, multi-proxy assessment of the resilience of cool temperate rainforest to fire in Victoria’s central highlands. In ‘Peopled Landscapes. Archaeological and Biogeographic Approaches to Landscapes, Terra Australis 34’. (Eds SG Haberle, B David) Chapter 18, pp. 375–392. (ANU Press: Canberra, ACT, Australia)Bowman DMJS (1998) Tansley Review No. 101 The impact of Aboriginal landscape burning on the Australian biota. New Phytologist 140, 385–410.
| Tansley Review No. 101 The impact of Aboriginal landscape burning on the Australian biota.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Busby JR (1986) A biogeographic analysis of Nothofagus cunninghamii (Hook.) Oerst. in southeastern Australia. Australian Journal of Ecology 11, 1–7.
| A biogeographic analysis of Nothofagus cunninghamii (Hook.) Oerst. in southeastern Australia.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Clark RL (1982) Point count estimates of charcoal in pollen preparations and thin sections of sediment. Pollen et Spores 24, 523–535.
Colhoun EA, Shimeld PW (2012) Late-Quaternary vegetation history of Tasmania from pollen records. In ‘Peopled Landscapes. Archaeological and Biogeographic Approaches to Landscapes, Terra Australis 34’. (Eds SG Haberle, B David) Chapter 14, pp. 297–328. (ANU Press: Canberra, ACT, Australia)
D’Costa DM, Grindrod J, Ogden R (1993) Preliminary environmental reconstructions from late Quaternary pollen and mollusc assemblages at Egg Lagoon, King Island, Bass Strait. Australian Journal of Ecology 18, 351–366.
| Preliminary environmental reconstructions from late Quaternary pollen and mollusc assemblages at Egg Lagoon, King Island, Bass Strait.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Dodson J, Fullagar R, Head L (1992) Dynamics of environment and people in the forested crescents of temperate Australia. In ‘The Naïve Lands, Prehistory and Environmental Change in Australia and the South-West Pacific’. (Ed. J Dodson) Chapter 6, pp. 115–159. (Longman Cheshire: Melbourne, Vic., Australia)
Enright NJ, Miller BP, Crawford A (1984) Environmental correlates of vegetation patterns and species richness in the northern Grampians, Victoria. Australian Journal of Botany 19, 159–168.
Fletcher MS, Thomas I (2007a) Holocene vegetation and climate change from near Lake Pedder, south-west Tasmania, Australia. Journal of Biogeography 34, 665–677.
| Holocene vegetation and climate change from near Lake Pedder, south-west Tasmania, Australia.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Fletcher MS, Thomas I (2007b) Modern pollen-vegetation relationships in western Tasmania, Australia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 146, 146–168.
| Modern pollen-vegetation relationships in western Tasmania, Australia.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Harris S, Ziegler K, Dell M (2015) The vegetation and flora of Strzelecki National Park, Flinders Island, Tasmania. Cunninghamia 15, 163–184.
Hogg AG, Heaton TJ, Hua Q, Palmer JG, Turney CSM, Southon J, Bayliss A, Blackwell PG, Boswijk G, Ramsey CB, Pearson C, Petchey F, Reimer P, Reimer R, Wacker L (2020) SHCal20 Southern hemisphere calibration, 0–55,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 62, 759–778.
| SHCal20 Southern hemisphere calibration, 0–55,000 years cal BP.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Hope GS (1978) The late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetational history of Hunter Island, north-western Tasmania. Australian Journal of Botany 26, 493–514.
| The late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetational history of Hunter Island, north-western Tasmania.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Howard T, Hope G (1970) The present and past occurrence of beech (Nothofagus cunninhamii Oerst.) at Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 83, 199–210.
Kirkpatrick JB, Fowler M (1998) Locating likely glacial forest refugia in Tasmania using palynological and ecological information to test alternative models. Biological Conservation 85, 171–182.
| Locating likely glacial forest refugia in Tasmania using palynological and ecological information to test alternative models.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Ladd PG, Orchiston DW, Joyce EB (1992) Holocene vegetation history of Flinders Island. New Phytologist 122, 757–767.
| Holocene vegetation history of Flinders Island.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Lambeck K, Yokoyama Y, Purcell T (2002) Into and out of the last glacial maximum: sea level change during oxygen isotope stages 3 and 2. Quaternary Science Reviews 21, 343–360.
| Into and out of the last glacial maximum: sea level change during oxygen isotope stages 3 and 2.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Mackenzie L, Moss P (2017) A late Quaternary record of vegetation and climate change from Hazards Lagoon, eastern Tasmania. Quaternary International 432, 58–65.
| A late Quaternary record of vegetation and climate change from Hazards Lagoon, eastern Tasmania.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
McWethy DB, Haberle SG, Hopf F, Bowman DMJS (2017) Aboriginal impacts on fire and vegetation on a Tasmanian island. Journal of Biogeography 44, 1319–1330.
| Aboriginal impacts on fire and vegetation on a Tasmanian island.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Murphy BP, Bowman DMJS (2007) The interdependence of fire, grass, kangaroos and Australian Aborigines: a case study from central Arnhem Land, northern Australia. Journal of Biogeography 34, 237–250.
| The interdependence of fire, grass, kangaroos and Australian Aborigines: a case study from central Arnhem Land, northern Australia.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Orchiston DW (1984) Quaternary environmental changes and Aboriginal man in Bass Strait, Australia. Man and Environment 8, 49–60.
Petherick L, Bostock H, Cohen TJ, Fitzsimmons K, Tibby J, Fletcher M-S, Moss P, Reeves J, Mooney S, Barrows T, Kemp J, Jansen J, Nanson G, Dosseto A (2013) Climatic records over the past 30 ka from temperate Australia – a synthesis from the INTIMATE workgroup. Quaternary Science Reviews 74, 58–77.
| Climatic records over the past 30 ka from temperate Australia – a synthesis from the INTIMATE workgroup.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Sim R (1998) The archaeology of isolation? Prehistoric occupation in the Furneaux group of islands, Bass Strait, Tasmania. PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Thomas I, Kirkpatrick JB (1996) The roles of coastlines, people and fire in the development of heathlands in northeast Tasmania. Journal of Biogeography 23, 717–728.
| The roles of coastlines, people and fire in the development of heathlands in northeast Tasmania.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Worth JRP, Jordan GJ, McKinnon GE, Vaillancourt RE (2009) The major Australian cool temperate rainforest tree Nothofagus cunninghamii withstood Pleistocene glacial aridity within multiple regions: evidence from the chloroplast. New Phytologist 182, 519–532.
| The major Australian cool temperate rainforest tree Nothofagus cunninghamii withstood Pleistocene glacial aridity within multiple regions: evidence from the chloroplast.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Worth JRP, Jordan GJ, Marthick JR, McKinnon GE, Vaillancourt RE (2010) Chloroplast evidence for geographic stasis of the Australian bird-dispersed shrub Tasmannia lanceolata (Winteraceae). Molecular Ecology 19, 2949–2963.
| Chloroplast evidence for geographic stasis of the Australian bird-dispersed shrub Tasmannia lanceolata (Winteraceae).Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Worth JRP, Marthick JR, Jordan GJ, Vaillancourt RE (2011) Low but structured chloroplast diversity in Atherosperma moschatum (Atherospermataceae) suggests bottlenecks in response to the Pleistocene glacials. Annals of Botany 108, 1247–1256.
| Low but structured chloroplast diversity in Atherosperma moschatum (Atherospermataceae) suggests bottlenecks in response to the Pleistocene glacials.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |