@article {Peteet2016168,
	title = {Recent and Holocene climate change controls on vegetation and carbon accumulation in Alaskan coastal muskegs},
	journal = {Quaternary Science Reviews},
	volume = {131, Part A},
	year = {2016},
	pages = {168 - 178},
	abstract = {Abstract Pollen, spore, macrofossil and carbon data from a peatland near Cordova, Alaska, reveal insights into the climate{\textendash}vegetation{\textendash}carbon interactions from the initiation of the Holocene, c. the last 11.5~ka, to the present (1~ka~=~1000 calibrated years before present where 0~=~1950 CE). The Holocene period is characterized by early deposition of gyttja in a pond environment with aquatics such as Nuphar polysepalum and Potamogeton, and a significant regional presence of Alnus crispa subsp. sinuata. Carbon accumulation (50~g/m2/a) was high for a short interval in the early Holocene when Sphagnum peat accumulated, but was followed by a major decline to 13~g/m2/a from 7 to 3.7~ka when Cyperaceae and ericads such as Rhododendron (formerly Ledum) groenlandicum expanded. This shift to sedge growth is representative of many peatlands throughout the south-central region of Alaska, and indicates a drier, more evaporative environment with a large decline in carbon storage. The subsequent return to Sphagnum peat after 4~ka in the Neoglacial represents a widespread shift to moister, cooler conditions, which favored a resurgence of ericads, such as Andromeda polifolia, and increased carbon accumulation rate. The sustained Alnus expansion visible in the top 10~cm of the peat profile is correlative with glacial retreat and warming of the region in the last century, and suggests this colonization will continue as temperature increases and ice melts.},
	keywords = {Alnus},
	issn = {0277-3791},
	doi = {http://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.10.032},
	url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379115301530},
	author = {Dorothy M. Peteet and Jonathan E. Nichols and Christopher M. Moy and Alicia McGeachy and Max Perez}
}
