Pollen assemblages from sediments are used as proxies for past vegetation composition. Understanding of the relationship between the original vegetation and the derivative pollen assemblages has been improved by comparative studies of modern pollen and vegetation, and by attempts to calibrate pollen data in terms of vegetation composition. A number of calibration data sets have been obtained during the past two decades; many of those have been collected by S.T. Jackson and students at the QPEL.
We plan to make all modern pollen and vegetation data sets obtained in calibration studies in the QPEL available for distribution on the web. We will also distribute other data sets as they become available. Sample data sets from the studies of Prentice and Webb (1986) and Jackson and Wong (1994) are provided with the FAGERLND program (see Jackson et al. 1995). These data will also be made available as part of the Pollen/Vegetation Calibration Database (PVCD), along with the data of Jackson and Kearsley (1998). These data should become available by late 1998. We are also preparing an expanded version of the small-lake data set of Jackson (1990); this new data set will include 35 small lakes of the northeastern United States. We anticipate making available the pollen and vegetation data sets of Heide (1981), Heide and Bradshaw (1982), and other studies as they become available.
Heide, K.M. 1981. Late Quaternary vegetation history of north
central Wisconsin, USA: estimating forest composition with pollen data.
PhD thesis, Brown University.
Heide, K.M. & R. Bradshaw. 1982. The pollen-tree relationship
within forests of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, U.S.A. Review of Palaeobotany
and Palynology 36:1-23.
Jackson, S.T. 1990. Pollen source area and representation in small
lakes of the northeastern United States. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology
63:53-76.
Jackson, S.T. & J.B. Kearsley. 1998. Quantitative representation
of local forest composition in forest-floor pollen assemblages. Journal
of Ecology 86 (in press, to appear June 1998).
Jackson, S.T., Webb, T. III, Prentice, I.C. & Hansen, J.E. 1995.
Exploration and calibration of pollen/vegetation relationships: a PC program
for the extended R-value models. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology,
84, 365-374.
Jackson, S.T. and Wong, A. 1994. Using forest patchiness to determine
pollen source areas of closed-canopy pollen assemblages. Journal of Ecology,
82, 89-100.
Prentice, I.C. & T. Webb III. 1986. Pollen percentages, tree
abundances, and the Fagerlind effect. Journal of Quaternary Science 1:35-43.
