Phytomass and carbon storage during the Eemian optimum, late Weichselian maximum and Holocene optimum in Eastern Europe

The phytomass stored in terrestrial vegetation at 5.5, 18 and 125 Ka BP, representing the environmental extremes of the Late Quaternary, was estimated for the Russian Plain, excluding the northern coast and adjacent piedmont. The estimates are based on paleovegetation maps by Grichuk [Grichuk, V.P., 1982. Rastitel ‘nostʹ Evropy v pozdnem pleistotsene. In: Gerasimov, I.P., Velichko, A.A. (Eds.), Paleogeografiya Evropy za Posledniye sto Tysyach Let. Nauka, Moscow, pp. 92–109, (in Russian).] for Eemian optimum, by Velichko and Isayeva [World Atlas of Resources and Environment, 1996. Lionty, H.A. (Ed.). Institute of Geography of RAS, Moscow, Vienna.] for the Late Glacial Maximum, and by Khotinskiy [Khotinskiy, N.A., 1984. Holocene vegetational history. In: Velichko, A.A. (Ed.), Late Quaternary Environments of the Soviet Union. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 179–200.] for the Late Atlantic, together with analysis of the ecological–coenotic connections of plants and their modern areas. Vegetation on the East-European Plain at 125, 18 and 5.5 Ka BP contained 81.0, 3.1 and 61.4 million kilotons of phytomass, which represents 36.5, 1.4 and 27.6 Gt of carbon. The phytomass of terrestrial plants thus represents an important sink of carbon. Its marked changes make it an important part of the carbon balance during the Pleistocene and the Holocene.