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Palaeoecology

Functional vegetation change over millennia

Analysis of regional-scale pollen data from southeast Australia that span the entire Holocene epoch reveals that plant functional diversity has been highly variable in time and space. A functional perspective on palaeoecological data helps us to better understand the current climate–biodiversity crisis and to predict future changes.

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Fig. 1: Four possible scenarios of changes in richness and functional diversity in relation to time.

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Correspondence to Triin Reitalu.

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Reitalu, T., Nogué, S. Functional vegetation change over millennia. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 174–175 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01949-y

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