Patterns of modern pollen and plant richness across northern Europe

1. Sedimentary pollen offers excellent opportunities to reconstruct vegetation changes over past millennia. Number of different pollen taxa or pollen richness is used to characterise past plant richness. To improve the interpretation of sedimentary pollen richness, it is essential to understand the relationship between pollen and plant richness in contemporary landscapes. This study presents a regional-scale comparison of pollen and plant richness from northern Europe and evaluates the importance of environmental variables on pollen and plant richness. 2. We use a pollen dataset of 511 lake-surface pollen samples ranging through temperate, boreal, and tundra biomes. To characterise plant diversity, we use a dataset formulated from the two largest plant atlases available in Europe. We compare pollen and plant richness estimates in different groups of taxa (wind-pollinated vs non-wind-pollinated, trees and shrubs vs herbs and grasses) and test their relationships with climate and landsca...1. 沉积花粉（sedimentary pollen）为重建过去数千年的植被演变提供了绝佳的研究契机。学界常通过不同花粉类群（pollen taxa）的数量或花粉丰富度（pollen richness）来表征古植物丰富度。为优化对沉积花粉丰富度的解译，厘清现代景观中花粉丰富度与植物丰富度（plant richness）的内在关联至关重要。本研究针对北欧区域开展了花粉与植物丰富度的区域尺度对比，并评估了环境变量对两类丰富度的影响权重。 2. 本研究采用了覆盖温带、寒温带（boreal）与苔原（tundra）生物群系的511份湖泊表层花粉样本（lake-surface pollen samples）数据集。为表征植物多样性，我们使用了源自欧洲两部最具权威性的植物志（plant atlases）的数据集。研究团队对比了不同功能类群——风媒传粉类群（wind-pollinated）与非风媒传粉类群（non-wind-pollinated）、乔灌木与草本及禾草类植物——的花粉与植物丰富度估算结果，并检验其与气候及景观（landsca...）的相关性。