Part-open landscape paper

We have another paper attempting to describe European natural land cover in the early Holocene, before human activity had its transformative impact. It’s fascinating and lends more support to the ‘part-open’ hypothesis. It suggests that European regions were generally a mix of closed canopy woodland, more open wood pasture, and even more open grassy shrublands.

Read it here (mercifully, it’s open access): DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi9135

As the authors suggest, the finding that natural European landscapes were a mosaic with plenty of open habitat is consistent with the fact that so many European species appear to favour - even depend on - more open, sunny habitats. European Bison and Aurochs are (were) mosaic specialists requiring access to bulky herbaceous vegetation. Most Shrikes are essentially open scrubland-grassland specialists, as are many bat species, reptiles, butterflies etc.