Lateglacial and Holocene pollen and charcoal records for truwana/Cape Barren Island, Bass Strait, southeast Australia.

We reconstruct long-term vegetation development in a temperate Australian
oceanic setting using wetland sediments, pollen and charcoal records from
truwana/Cape Barren Island in Bass Strait to reconstruct vegetation and
fire history. Magnetic susceptibility and organic content were also
derived for two of the four sites considered as proxies for local
sedimentary changes. Result shows that the lateglacial landscape
(14,000–13000 cal yr BP) was characterized by open grassy Eucalyptus
woodland in Bass Strait, and Eucalyptus woodland cover increased during
the early Holocene (13,000–9000 cal yr BP), with high fire activity. Scrub
and heathland generally dominated by Leptospermum, Melaleuca,
Allocasuarina/Casuarina and Ericaceae taxa expanded in the last 9000 years
at the expense of Eucalyptus woodland, with a major decline in fire
activity after 5000 cal yr BP until the last 200 years. Woodland elements
(Eucalyptus, Callitris) increased slightly at some sites in the last 2000
years.