Ricerc@Sapienza

Mediterranean mid-altitude sites are critical for the survival of plant species allowing for elevationalvegetation shifts in response to high-amplitude climate variability. Pollen records from the southernBalkans have underlined the importance of the region in preserving plant diversity over at least the lasthalf a million years. So far, there are no records of vegetation and climate dynamics from Balkan refugiawith an Early Pleistocene age.

The Lateglacial/early Holocene sediments from the ancient lake at Hasseldala Port, southern Sweden provide an important archive for the environmental and climatic shifts at the end of the last ice age and the transition into the present Interglacial. The existing multi-proxy data set highlights the complex interplay of physical and ecological changes in response to climatic shifts and lake status changes. Yet, it remains unclear how microorganisms, such as Archaea, which do not leave microscopic features in the sedimentary record, were affected by these climatic shifts.