THE FLORA AND VEGETATION IN EUROPE DURING THE ALLEROD

Tundra vegetation during the Allerod optimum was limited to the fringe of the Scandinavian ice sheet and the Kola Peninsula. In contrast, fo rest-tundra vegetation assemblages, including birch, pine and spruce, were much more extensive, reaching the Arctic Ocean coastline, in nort heastern Europe. Pine, birch and mixed pine-birch forests flanked the southern periphery of spruce forests in the Russian Plain, Belarus and the eastern Baltic states. Mixed deciduous forest vegetation extended at least to the Rhodopes Mountains of Bulgaria. Vegetation assemblage s indicated by pollen preserved in Allerod deposits have no direct ana logues elsewhere in the Quaternary climato-stratigraphic record, resul ting from the short duration of the Allerod event. Existing plant comm unities responded to the Allerod climate by changes in areal distribut ion and relative proportions of species, and long-range migrations wer e not significant. During the Valdai Late Glacial Maximum, periglacial tundra communities dominated the margins of the glaciers, with perigl acial-steppe assemblages characterizing the regions to the south. (C) 1997 INQUA/Elsevier Science Ltd.