Vegetation in western Central Mexico during the last 50 000 years: modern analogs and climate in the Zacapu Basin

The late glacial and the transition towards the Holocene marked a period of significant environmental change at a global scale. In western Central Mexico, few records span beyond the Holocene, and little is known about Pleistocene climatic and environmental variability. Here we report on the pollen record of a composite sequence made of three cores that cover the last 50 ka (thousands of calibrated radiocarbon years before present) in the Zacapu Basin, western Central Mexico (～1970 m asl). The conjunction of modern pollen rain from the area with the composite fossil pollen sequence from cores Cantabria, Cantabria 1 and CEMCA Point‐1 provided a detailed history of the vegetation of the area. Recognition of modern environmental patterns through individual modern pollen taxa proved difficult, but multivariate analysis separated different vegetation types. No‐modern‐analog communities relative to the modern vegetation cover of the area were evident, especially during periods of drought. Apparently, summer precipitation was significant before 40 ka and after the deglaciation. However, this moisture source declined from ～40 to 10 ka because tradewinds from the Gulf of Mexico were blocked by the eastern mountains of Central Mexico as a result of lower temperatures. By contrast, westerly and northerly winds were enhanced by maximum ice cover from ～19 to 17 ka, providing abundant winter precipitation and therefore preventing extreme drought in the area. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.