Sprecher
Beschreibung
A major global cooling during the Middle Miocene Climate Transition, ~ 14–13 million years ago (Ma) marked the beginning of a shift between Earth’s coolhouse and icehouse states. During this time, much of Central and Southern Europe was covered by a northward extension of the Mediterranean Sea, the Central Paratethys. Remarkably, the Middle Miocene (~ 12.7–12.1 Ma) Lagerstätte of Radoboj from northern Croatia comprises a hyperdiverse flora and insect fauna along with fish, dolphin and bird remains deposited in marine sediments. Both the flora and insect fauna of Radoboj were first published in the middle of the 19th century. In this talk, I first introduce the rich fossil flora of Radoboj and discuss taphonomic and taxonomic aspects of this plant assemblage. I then briefly present the insect remains and plant-insect interactions recorded on fossil leaves. Our quantitative palaeoclimate reconstructions using leaf physiognomy as a climate proxy suggest near-tropical conditions on an island surrounded by a warm sea, despite global cooling trends. Modern environments with similar climate conditions are found on Okinawa Island and along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Notably, modern climate stations are at the border between warm temperate (C) and equatorial (A) Köppen-Geiger climate types. The richness of plant-insect interactions in this assemblage is unparalleled for most of the Cenozoic of Europe indicating high ecosystem productivity. Our findings underscore the importance of land-sea distribution in modulating regional terrestrial climate and latitudinal gradients and have significant implications for understanding vegetation responses to climate change.