The transformation of the forest steppe in the lower Danube Plain of southeastern Europe: 6000 years of vegetation and land use dynamics

Feurdean, Angelica; Grindean, Roxana; Florescu, Gabriela; Tanţău, Ioan; Niedermeyer, Eva M.; Diaconu, Andrei-Cosmin; Hutchinson, Simon M.; Nielsen, Anne Brigitte; Sava, Tiberiu; Panait, Andrei; Braun, Mihaly; Hickler, Thomas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1081-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1081-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1081-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 3

Research article

|

15 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 15 Feb 2021

The transformation of the forest steppe in the lower Danube Plain of southeastern Europe: 6000 years of vegetation and land use dynamics

Angelica Feurdean, Roxana Grindean, Gabriela Florescu, Ioan Tanţău, Eva M. Niedermeyer, Andrei-Cosmin Diaconu, Simon M. Hutchinson, Anne Brigitte Nielsen, Tiberiu Sava, Andrei Panait, Mihaly Braun, and Thomas Hickler

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Final revised paper (published on 15 Feb 2021)
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Preprint (discussion started on 10 Aug 2020)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review 1', Natalie Schroeter, 20 Aug 2020
- AC2: 'Reply to R1', Angelica Feurdean, 12 Oct 2020
RC2: 'Interactive comment', Simon Connor, 28 Aug 2020
- AC1: 'Comment to R2', Angelica Feurdean, 18 Sep 2020
- AC3: 'Reply to R2', Angelica Feurdean, 12 Oct 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (19 Oct 2020) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Angelica Feurdean on behalf of the Authors (02 Nov 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (24 Nov 2020) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Angelica Feurdean on behalf of the Authors (28 Nov 2020)

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Short summary

Here we used multi-proxy analyses from Lake Oltina (Romania) and quantitatively examine the past 6000 years of the forest steppe in the lower Danube Plain, one of the oldest areas of human occupation in southeastern Europe. We found the greatest tree cover between 6000 and 2500 cal yr BP. Forest loss was under way by 2500 yr BP, falling to ~20 % tree cover linked to clearance for agriculture. The weak signs of forest recovery over the past 2500 years highlight recurring anthropogenic pressure.