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Updated: Jul 25, 2026

Field-Based Thermal Physiology Assay: Cold Shock Recovery under Ambient Conditions
Published on: March 9, 2021
48,000 years of climate and forest change in a biodiversity hot spot
Mark B Bush1, Miles R Silman, Dunia H Urrego
1Florida Institute of Technology, 150 West University Boulevard, Melbourne, FL 32901-6975, USA. mbush@fit.edu
Abstract:
A continuous 48,000-year-long paleoecological record from Neotropical lower montane forest reveals a consistent forest presence and an ice-age cooling of approximately 5 degrees to 9 degrees C. After 30,000 years of compositional stability, a steady turnover of species marks the 8000-year-long transition from ice-age to Holocene conditions. Although the changes were directional, the rates of community change were no different during this transitional period than in the preceding 30,000-year period of community stability. The warming rate of about 1 degrees C per millennium during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition was an order of magnitude less than the projected changes for the 21st century.
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