Impacto humano y cambios naturales en la vegetación de la Costa Cantábrica oriental durante el Antropoceno y el Holoceno

Resumen

The estuaries of the Cantabrian coast have been historically places of exploitation and human settlement due to the variety of resources that these areas can provide, leaving their footprint in the fossil record. The objective of this work is to reconstruct the process of anthropization of the vegetable landscape (through pollen data) in the eastern Cantabrian coast. Agricultural and timber exploitation caused a reduction of tree species in favour of herbaceous taxa (Cerealia t., Poaceae, Apiaceae, Sordaria t). Subsequently, a progressive growth of tree pollen can be observed, indicating a recovery of forest areas. This is due to the abandonment of agricultural activities that led, partially, to the colonization of these spaces by taxa such as Alnus. Moreover, in the last 200 years, the observed forest recovery is clearly linked to the reforestation started in the 19th century. The main objective of these reforestations was timber exploitation, and that is why we observed an increase in taxa such as Pinus pinaster. In addition, from 1940 onwards, the so-called “National Reforestation Plan” was implemented, which intensified the growth of the forest areas and was also responsible for the introduction of foreign species such as Eucalyptus sp. The data show that, in the short Anthropocene cores, a greater human impact (reforestation, agricultural activities and infrastructures) is observed compared to the long Holocene cores.