The Modern and Late Quaternary Vegetation of the Campbell‐Dolomite Uplands, near Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada

The Campbell—Dolomite uplands comprise a small area (140 km2) of outcropping, faulted dolomite, limestone, and shale east of the Mackenzie River Delta, ~ 40 km south of the northern limit of trees. The major landforms are bedrock ridges and plateaux, steep colluvium, stable slopes, shorelines, and depressions. A principal component analysis of vegetation—cover data from 150 stands suggest that much of the variation within the heterogeneous vegetation is correlated with these broad habitat categories. Stable surfaces bear an open spruce woodland with alder, tree and dwarf birch, and a varied lichen—heath—Dryas ground vegetation. A glacially modified karstic (solution) depression contains a small (8 ha), relatively deep (22 m), apparently meromictic lake, which yielded a 12,000—yr core of sediment. A conventional percentage diagram, an influx diagram, and numerical analysis (principal components) suggest a sequence of pollen assemblage zones as follows: (1) Salix—Gramineae—Artemisia: 13,000 to 11,300 radiocarbon yr ago, (2) Betula (shrub)—Salix—Gramineae—Artemisia: 11,300 to 10,300, (3) Betula—Populus: 10,300 to 9,700, (4) Betula—Populus—Juniperus: 9,700 to 8,900, (5) Picea—Betula (tree and shrub)—Juniperus: 8,900 to 6,500, and (6) Picea—Betula—Alnus: 6,500 to present. Both percentage data and numerical analyses show that none of the pollen assemblage zones 1 to 5 has a modern analogue. With 1 exception, these patterns of change in pollen spectra can be interpreted parsimoniously without reference to regional environmental change. They suggest an initial phase of migration of willow and herbs from adjacent unglaciated Megaberingia (North Yukon and Alaska), followed rapidly by dwarf birch and later poplar. Megaberingian floristic elements (e.g., Plantago canescens, Selaginella sibirica) reached the area during this early phase of migration. Subsequently arriving from the south along the Mackenzie valley were juniper, ericads, spruce, and finally alder, which intensified competition and restricted the early Megaberingian herb types to open, unstable habitats where they persist today. Slow soil development (humus accumulation, rising permafrost table) probably favoured the spread of the palynologically 'silent' elements–lichens, ericads, and Dryas (the dominants of the modern ground vegetation). Changes in the influx values of Picea suggest a climatically induced increase in tree density and/or pollen production during the period 9,000—7,000 BP (Zone 5).