Persistence of coastal spruce refugia during the Holocene in northern New England, USA, detected by stand-scale pollen stratigraphies

Abstract

1. Pollen data from wet, forested hollows in five spruce (Picea) stands on the eastern coast of Maine, USA, reveal that spruce has been well-established (spruce pollen > 6%) for at least 5000 years at four of the sites (Isle au Haut, Schoodic Peninsula, and Roque Island). Spruce became dominant in the fifth stand (Blackwoods, Mount Desert Island) only in the last 2000 years. This is in contrast to pollen stratigraphies from two inland forest hollows and from inland lakes that indicate a significant region-wide increase in the abundance of spruce only 1000 years ago. 2. All five coastal pollen stratigraphies suggest that conditions along the east coast of Maine became cooler and moister sometime between 6000 and 5000 years ago. Mid-Holocene changes in vegetation and sediment accumulation correspond with the timing of rapid increases in tidal amplitude and diurnal mixing of cold water in the Gulf of Maine, suggestive that these resulted in increased marine effects on the local climate at a time that was generally warmer than present. 3. Two inland forest-hollow stratigraphies do not show evidence of mid-Holocene cooling. Coastal effects therefore persisted for several thousand years despite regional climate changes. 4. The pollen data suggest that refugia along the coast (and probably in isolated sites inland), may have played a critical role in allowing the rapid regional expansion of spruce around 1000 years ago. The steep increases in the abundance of spruce pollen in all forest-hollow and lake pollen stratigraphies in northern New England at that time corroborate other evidence of a region-wide shift to cooler and moister conditions. 5. Pollen stratigraphies from small forested hollows provide a means to examine local vegetation dynamics and interpret those dynamics in the context of regional signals.