Table 2 Disturbance types and indicators (proxies) extracted from published palaeoecological studies.

From: Recovery and resilience of tropical forests after disturbance

Disturbance source

Disturbance type

Proxy

Natural

Climate (C)

Precipitation (CP)

Sea-level rise (CS)

Oxygen isotopes, fire (low levels, not linked to human presence), magnetic susceptibility, lithology

Rainfall, monsoon strength variation, climate drying (CD)

Sea level

 

Large infrequent (LI)

Hurricane (LI-H), landslide (LI-L), fire (LI-F), volcano (volcanic ash) (LI-V)

Human (FC)

Burning (B)

Microfossil & macrofossil charcoal

 

Forest clearing (FC)

Temporary, predominantly resulting from shifting cultivation (SC), or more permanent, generally selective clearing, or not described (FC) signified by for example, fruit trees, Poaceae, & disturbance indicators/secondary forest taxa, for example, Arenga and Macaranga, or magnetic susceptibility

 

Agriculture (Ag)

Agricultural indicators, for example, fruit trees—Ficus, crops—Poaceae

Unclear

(U)

Disturbance indicators present but specific type not clarified

  1. Disturbance types and proxies (used to identify the former) were extracted either from published pollen diagrams or from the associated text. Abbreviations for the different disturbance types are given in parentheses. Smaller natural perturbations such as tree falls, though not explicitly defined due to the difficulty of identification through fossil pollen analysis, may also contribute to large infrequent (LI) disturbance events. (See Supplementary Data 1 for the full record of disturbance types referred to here.)
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