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Abstract. The Indo-Pacific Pollen Database (IPPD) is the brainchild of the late Professor Geoffrey Hope, who gathered pollen records from across the region to ensure their preservation for future generations of palaeoecologists. This noble aim is now being fulfilled by integrating the IPPD into the online Neotoma Palaeoecology Database, making this compilation available for public use. Here we explore the database in depth and suggest directions for future research. The IPPD comprises 226 fossil pollen records, most postdating 20 ka, but some extending as far back as 50 ka or further. Over 80 % of the records are Australian, with a fairly even distribution between the different Australian geographical regions, the notable exception being Western Australia, which is only represented by 3 records. The records are also well distributed in modern climate space, the largest gap being in drier regions due to preservation issues. However, many of the records contain few samples or have fewer than 5 chronology control points, such as radiocarbon, luminescence or Pb-210 for the younger sequences. Average sedimentation rate for the whole database, counted as years per cm, is 64.8 yr/cm, with 61 % of the records having a rate of less than 50 yr/cm. The highest sedimentation rate by geographical region occurs on Australia’s east coast, while the lowest rates are from the Western Pacific. Overall, Australia has a higher sedimentation rate than the rest of the Indo-Pacific region. The IPPD offers many exciting research opportunities, such as examination of human impact on regional vegetation, contrasting first human arrival and colonisation, and assessment of rates of vegetation change during the Holocene. Merging the IPPD into Neotoma also facilitates inclusion of data from the Indo-Pacific region into global syntheses. 

Climate and ecosystem dynamics vary across timescales, but research into climate-driven vegetation dynamics usually focuses on singular timescales. We developed a spectral analysis–based approach that provides detailed estimates of the timescales at which vegetation tracks climate change, from 10¹to 10⁵years. We report dynamic similarity of vegetation and climate even at centennial frequencies (149⁻¹to 18,012⁻¹year⁻¹, that is, one cycle per 149 to 18,012 years). A breakpoint in vegetation turnover (797⁻¹year⁻¹) matches a breakpoint between stochastic and autocorrelated climate processes, suggesting that ecological dynamics are governed by climate across these frequencies. Heightened vegetation turnover at millennial frequencies (4650⁻¹year⁻¹) highlights the risk of abrupt responses to climate change, whereas vegetation-climate decoupling at frequencies >149⁻¹year⁻¹may indicate long-lasting consequences of anthropogenic climate change for ecosystem function and biodiversity. 

ABSTRACT BackgroundHuman pressures are driving the emergence of unprecedented, ‘novel’, ecological and environmental systems. The concept of novel (eco)systems is well accepted by the scientific community, but the use and measurement of novelty has outgrown initial definitions and critiques. There are still unresolved methodological and conceptual differences in quantifying novelty that prevent a unified research approach. FrameworkHere we present a conceptual framework and guidelines to unify past and future measurement of ecological novelty. Under this framework, novelty is a property of an ecological or environmental entity of interest. Novelty is quantified as the comparison between the target entity and a reference set, measured as the summary of degrees of difference across one or more dimensions. Choices in these components, particularly the reference set, can change resulting novelty measurements and inferences. ShowcaseWe provide a case‐study to showcase our framework, measuring pre‐ and post‐European novelty in 99 pollen assemblages in Midwest USA forests. We paired this quantitative exploration with a five‐step process designed to improve the utility and outcomes of novelty analyses. ConclusionsQuantitative novelty has immense value in studies of abrupt ecological change, linking climatic and ecological change, biotic interactions and invasions, species range shifts and fundamental theories. Our framework offers a unified overview and is also primed for integration into management and restoration workflows, providing consistent and robust measurements of novelty to support decision making, priority setting and resource allocation. 

Abstract Rising temperatures, increasing hydroclimate variability and intensifying disturbance regimes increase the risk of rapid ecosystem conversions. We can leverage multi‐proxy records of past ecosystem transformations to understand their causes and ecosystem vulnerability to rapid change.Prior to Euro‐American settlement, northern Indiana was a mosaic of prairie, oak‐dominated forests/woodlands and beech‐dominated hardwood forests. This heterogeneity, combined with well‐documented but poorly understood past beech population declines, make this region ideal for studying the drivers of ecosystem transformations.Here, we present a new record from Story Lake, IN, with proxies for vegetation composition (pollen), fire (charcoal) and beech intrinsic water use efficiency (δ¹³C of beech pollen; δ¹³C_beech). Multiple proxies from the same core enable clear establishment of lead–lag relationships. Additionally, δ¹³C_beechenables direct comparisons between beech population abundance and physiological responses to changing environments. We compare Story Lake to a nearby lake‐level reconstruction and to pollen records from nearby Pretty and Appleman Lakes and the distal Spicer Lake, to test hypotheses about synchrony and the spatial scale of governing processes.The 11.7 ka sediment record from Story Lake indicates multiple conversions between beech‐hardwood forest and oak forest/woodland. Beech pollen abundances rapidly increased between 7.5 and 7.1 ka, while oak declined. Oak abundances increased after 4.6 ka and remained high until 2.8 ka, indicating replacement of mesic forests by oak forest/woodland. At 2.8 ka, beech abundances rapidly increased, indicating mesic forest reestablishment. Beech and oak abundances correlate with charcoal accumulation rates but beech abundance is not correlated with δ¹³C_beech.Fluctuations in beech abundances are synchronous among Story, Appleman and Pretty Lakes, but asynchronous between Story and Spicer Lakes, suggesting regulation by local‐scale vegetation‐fire‐climate feedbacks and secondarily by regional‐scale drivers.Holocene forest composition and fire dynamics appear to be closely co‐regulated and may be affected by local to regional climate variations. The importance of extrinsic drivers and positive/negative feedbacks changes over time, with higher ecoclimate sensitivity before 2.8 ka and greater resilience afterwards.Synthesis: Overall, oak‐ and beech‐dominated ecosystems were highly dynamic over the Holocene, with multiple ecosystem conversions driven by shifting interactions among vegetation, hydroclimate and fire regime. 

Abstract. The Indo–Pacific Pollen Database (IPPD) is the brainchild of the late professor Geoffrey Hope, who gathered pollen records from across the region to ensure their preservation for future generations of palaeoecologists. This noble aim is now being fulfilled by integrating the IPPD into the online Neotoma Paleoecology Database, making this compilation available for public use. Here we explore the database in depth and suggest directions for future research. The IPPD comprises 226 fossil pollen records, most postdating 20 ka but with some extending as far back as 50 ka or further. Over 80 % of the records are Australian, with a fairly even distribution between the different Australian geographical regions, with the notable exception being Western Australia, which is only represented by three records. The records are also well distributed in the modern climate space, with the largest gap being in drier regions due to preservation issues. However, many of the records contain few samples or have fewer than five chronology control points, such as radiocarbon, luminescence or Pb-210, for the younger sequences. Average deposition time for the whole database, counted as years per centimetre, is 64.8 yr cm−1, with 61 % of the records having a deposition time shorter than 50 yr cm−1. The slowest deposition time by geographical region occurs on Australia's east coast, while the fastest times are from the western Pacific. Overall, Australia has a slower deposition time than the rest of the Indo–Pacific region. The IPPD offers many exciting research opportunities to investigate past regional vegetation changes and associated drivers, including contrasting the impact of the first human arrival and European colonisation on vegetation. Examining spatiotemporal patterns of diversity and compositional turnover/rate of change, land cover reconstructions, and plant functional or trait diversity are other avenues of potential research, amongst many others. Merging the IPPD into Neotoma also facilitates inclusion of data from the Indo–Pacific region into global syntheses. 

Abstract. Land cover governs the biogeophysical and biogeochemical feedbacks between the land surface and atmosphere. Holocene vegetation-atmosphere interactions are of particular interest, both to understand the climate effects of intensifying human land use and as a possible explanation for the Holocene Conundrum, a widely studied mismatch between simulated and reconstructed temperatures. Progress has been limited by a lack of data-constrained, quantified, and consistently produced reconstructions of Holocene land cover change. As a contribution to the Past Global Changes (PAGES) LandCover6k Working Group, we present a new suite of land cover reconstructions with uncertainty for North America, based on a network of 1445 sedimentary pollen records and the REVEALS pollen-vegetation model coupled with a Bayesian spatial model. These spatially comprehensive land cover maps are then used to determine the pattern and magnitude of North American land cover changes at continental to regional scales. Early Holocene afforestation in North America was driven by rising temperatures and deglaciation, and this afforestation likely amplified early Holocene warming via the albedo effect. A continental-scale mid-Holocene peak in summergreen trees and shrubs (8.5 to 4 ka) is hypothesized to represent a positive and understudied feedback loop among insolation, temperature, and phenology seasonality. A last-millennium decrease in summergreen trees and shrubs with corresponding increases in open land likely was driven by a spatially varying combination of intensifying land use and neoglacial cooling. Land cover trends vary within and across regions, due to individualistic taxon-level responses to environmental change. Major species-level events, such as the mid-Holocene decline of eastern hemlock, may have altered regional climates. The substantial land-cover changes reconstructed here support the importance of biogeophysical vegetation feedbacks to Holocene climate dynamics. However, recent model experiments that invoke vegetation feedbacks to explain the Holocene Conundrum may have overestimated the land cover forcing by replacing Northern Hemisphere grasslands >30° N with forests; an ecosystem state that is not supported by these land cover reconstructions. These Holocene reconstructions for North America, along with similar LandCover6k products now available for other continents, serve the Earth system modeling community by providing better-constrained land cover scenarios and benchmarks for model evaluation, ultimately making it possible to better understand the regional- to global-scale processes driving Holocene land cover dynamics. 

ABSTRACT Turnover in species composition often lags behind the pace of climate change, resulting in mismatches between climate and communities. However, the impact of these community‐climate disequilibria on ecosystem functions is rarely considered, and current methods for measuring disequilibria assume that species ranges were, until recently, in equilibrium with climate. Here, we develop a simple theoretical model to address both of these problems by linking community‐climate disequilibrium with ecosystem functioning. We show how disequilibrium can impair functioning in the near‐term even when climate change is expected to enhance functioning in the long‐term. Responses are most likely to change over time in communities where turnover is slow, the impact of disequilibrium counteracts the direct effects of climate on ecosystem function, and pre‐existing disequilibrium is large. These findings emphasise the importance of precise and unbiased estimates of community‐climate disequilibria for improving ecological forecasts. By fitting our model to time series of both climate and ecosystem function from a metacommunity simulation, we show the potential for community‐climate disequilibrium to be inferred without direct knowledge about species' distributions or climatic tolerances. We end by outlining a research agenda to apply dynamic disequilibrium concepts and test novel hypotheses across diverse ecosystems.