Central European vegetation response to abrupt climate change at 8.2 ka

Oxygen isotope records show a major climatic reversal at 8.2 ka in Greenland and Europe. Annually laminated sediments from two lakes in Switzerland and Germany were sampled contiguously to assess the response of European vegetation to climate change ca. 8.2 ka with time resolution and precision comparable to those of the Greenland ice cores. The pollen assemblages show pronounced and immediate responses (0–20 yr) of terrestrial vegetation to the climatic change at 8.2 ka. A sudden collapse of Corylus avellana (hazel) was accompanied by the rapid expansion of Pinus (pine), Betula (birch), and Tilia (linden), and by the invasion of Fagus silvatica (beech) and Abies alba (fir). Vegetational changes suggest that climatic cooling reduced drought stress, allowing more drought-sensitive and taller growing species to out-compete Corylus avellana by forming denser forest canopies. Climate cooling at 8.2 ka and the immediate reorganization of terrestrial ecosystems has gone unrecognized by previous pollen studies. On the basis of our data we conclude that the early Holocene high abundance of C. avellana in Europe was climatically caused, and we question the conventional opinion that postglacial expansions of F. silvatica and A. alba were controlled by low migration rates rather than by climate. The close connection between climatic change and vegetational response at a subcontinental scale implies that forecasted global warming may trigger rapid collapses, expansions, and invasions of tree species.

Early osseointegration to hydrophilic and hydrophobic implant surfaces in humans

To evaluate the rate and degree of osseointegration at chemically modified moderately rough, hydrophilic (SLActive) and moderately rough, hydrophobic (SLA) implant surfaces during early phases of healing in a human model.

Four thousand years of vegetation and fire history in the spruce forests of northern Kyrgyzstan (Kungey Alatau, Central Asia)

Analyses of pollen, macrofossils and microscopic charcoal in the sediment of a small sub-alpine lake (Karakol, Kyrgyzstan) provide new data to reconstruct the vegetation history of the Kungey Alatau spruce forest during the late-Holocene, i.e. the past 4,000 years. The pollen data suggest that Picea schrenkiana F. and M. was the dominant tree in this region from the beginning of the record. The pollen record of pronounced die-backs of the forests, along with lithostratigraphical evidence, points to possible climatic cooling (and/or drying) around 3,800 cal year B.P., and between 3,350 and 2,520 cal year B.P., with a culmination at 2,800-2,600 cal B.P., although stable climatic conditions are reported for this region for the past 3,000-4,000 years in previous studies. From 2,500 to 190 cal year B.P. high pollen values of P. schrenkiana suggest rather closed and dense forests under the environmental conditions of that time. A marked decline in spruce forests occurred with the onset of modern human activities in the region from 190 cal year B.P. These results show that the present forests are anthropogenically reduced and represent only about half of their potential natural extent. As P. schrenkiana is a species endemic to the western Tien Shan, it is most likely that its refugium was confined to this region. However, our palaeoecological record is too recent to address this hypothesis thoroughly.

Ancient History as a Means of Transforming Colonial India in the Late-Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries

This article focuses on the studies and discourses of mostly British scholars of the early colonial period belonging to two schools of thought. It shows how the studies of both schools – European orientalism and utilitarianism – were intricately connected to the political development of the emerging British paramountcy over the South Asian sub-continent, as both were looking for means of establishing and/or strengthening colonial rule. Nevertheless, the debate was not just a continuation of discussions in Europe. Whereas the ideas of the European Enlightenment had some influence, the transformation of the Mughal Empire and especially the idea of a decline of Muslim rule offered ample opportunities for understanding the early history of India either as some sort of “Golden Age,” as the orientalists and their indigenous supporters did, or as something static and degenerate, as the utilitarians did, and from which the population of sub-continent had to be saved by colonial rule and colonial values. Fearing the spread of the ideas of the French Revolution, the first group of British scholars sought to persuade the native elites of South Asia to take the lessons of their past for the future development of their homeland. Just as the classicists back in Europe, these scholars were convinced that large-scale explanations of the past could also teach political and moral lessons for the present although it was important to deal with the distant past in an empirical manner. The utilitarians on the other hand believed that India had to be saved from its own depravity through the English language and Western values, which amounted to nothing less than the modern transformation of the true Classical Age.