The nature and timing of faunal change in the British Isles across the Pleistocene Holocene transition

The abrupt change in climate during the last deglaciation Is reflected in t he British Isles by a transition from periglacial to temperate faunas. In c ontrast to the coleopteran record, terrestrial mammals characteristic of th e Lateglacial persist for several hundred years in southern Britain after t he end of the Younger Dryas (Loch Lomond Stadial, end-Pleistocene). This la g in the vertebrate faunal transition could reflect a delay in the Holocene vegetational succession, coupled with a degree of thermal tolerance in col d-adapted mammals. Nonetheless, distinct faunal transitions are seen in the vertebrate records in both southern Britain and southern Ireland, and ther e do not appear to be transitional faunas containing contemporaneous glacia l and temperate species at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary.