A pollen profile from varved lake sediments sampled at 10-year intervals and spanning the past 1000 years is analyzed to understand the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity on forests in southwestern Quebec. The forests responded rapidly to changes in temperature and precipitation during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as well as to land-use changes associated with the European Settlement of the area. The transition into the Little Ice Age was abrupt and had significant impact on the pollen production within a couple of decades. A synthesis of this record with other high-resolution and well-dated pollen data from the conifer-hardwood forest of eastern North America shows consistent results across the whole area, indicating that very-high resolution pollen data can provide insight into multi-decadal climate variability and its impact on forest vegetation. Tree-ring records from the region show inter-annual fluctuations not always consistent between sites, while high-resolution pollen data record multi-decadal to century changes which enable us to interpret climatic effects on plant communities.

Sassafras is a deciduous, hardwood, ring-porous species occurring throughout the eastern United States as far west as the Great Plains, but sassafras is used rarely in dendrochronological studies. Samples from 44 sassafras (Sassafras albidum) trees were crossdated (Crossdating Index 2) within and between two sites in Indiana. Ring-width indices were significantly correlated with a variety of climatic indicators. These results suggest that sassafras can be used for a variety of dendrochronological studies.

A pollen profile from varved lake sediments sampled at 10-year intervals and spanning the past 1000 years is analyzed to understand the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity on forests in southwestern Quebec. The forests responded rapidly to changes in temperature and precipitation during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as well as to land-use changes associated with the European Settlement of the area. The transition into the Little Ice Age was abrupt and had significant impact on the pollen production within a couple of decades. A synthesis of this record with other high-resolution and well-dated pollen data from the conifer-hardwood forest of eastern North America shows consistent results across the whole area, indicating that very-high resolution pollen data can provide insight into multi-decadal climate variability and its impact on forest vegetation. Tree-ring records from the region show inter-annual fluctuations not always consistent between sites, while high-resolution pollen data record multi-decadal to century changes which enable us to interpret climatic effects on plant communities.

A pollen profile from varved lake sediments sampled at 10-year intervals and spanning the past 1000 years is analyzed to understand the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity on forests in southwestern Quebec. The forests responded rapidly to changes in temperature and precipitation during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as well as to land-use changes associated with the European Settlement of the area. The transition into the Little Ice Age was abrupt and had significant impact on the pollen production within a couple of decades. A synthesis of this record with other high-resolution and well-dated pollen data from the conifer-hardwood forest of eastern North America shows consistent results across the whole area, indicating that very-high resolution pollen data can provide insight into multi-decadal climate variability and its impact on forest vegetation. Tree-ring records from the region show inter-annual fluctuations not always consistent between sites, while high-resolution pollen data record multi-decadal to century changes which enable us to interpret climatic effects on plant communities.

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