Disentangling environmental drivers of subarctic dinocyst assemblage compositional change during the Holocene

Abstract n = 1968), including samples from the Baffin Bay area (n = 421), and evaluated the benefits of a local versus a more regional or global calibration for the environmental reconstruction of Baffin Bay oceanography during the Holocene. We determined the dimensionality of the dinocyst ecological response and identified environmental drivers in the Baffin Bay area for the modern dataset. We analysed four existing Holocene records along a north–south transect in the area and evaluated the statistical significance of downcore reconstructions by applying the local and global datasets with different techniques: the modern analogue technique (MAT), the weighted average partial least square (WA-PLS) and maximum likelihood (ML). We evaluated reconstructions tested as significant in light of the existing state of knowledge about West Greenland's Holocene palaeoceanography. Our analyses imply that present-day and Holocene dinocyst assemblages in the Baffin Bay area are primarily driven by salinity changes; other parameters were less important in driving assemblage compositions, and their contribution differed among the studied records. We show that the objectively occurring and temporally coherent shifts in dinocyst assemblages in the Holocene of Baffin Bay can be robustly interpreted only by transfer functions that are locally calibrated. Transfer functions based on the broad Northern Hemisphere calibration yielded many insignificant environmental reconstructions. At the same time, we show that even in the local calibration, not all parameters that appear to significantly affect dinocyst assemblages in the calibration dataset can be meaningfully reconstructed in the fossil record. A thorough evaluation of the calibration dataset and the significance of downcore applications is necessary to reveal the region-specific information contained in dinocyst assemblage composition.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Disentangling environmental drivers of subarctic dinocyst assemblage compositional change during the Holocene ; volume:19 ; number:10 ; year:2023 ; pages:2027-2051 ; extent:25 ; Climate of the past ; 19, Heft 10 (2023), 2027-2051 (gesamt 25)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Hohmann, Sabrina ; Kucera, Michal ; de Vernal, Anne

Further information

• DOI: 10.5194/cp-19-2027-2023
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2023110203205729006805
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:51 AM CEST