Surface Pollen Studies Across a Woodland/Heath Transition and Their Application to the Interpretation of Pollen Diagrams

SUMMARY Pollen analysis has been carried out on surface moss polsters from oak woodland and moorland communities in West Yorkshire, and the results have been compared with the composition of the surrounding vegetation. In general, the pollen specta reflected the adjacent plant communities well, but certain marked anomalies have been observed. The deposition of Alnus and Corylus pollen in particular appeared to be erratic, and certain of the non‐arboreal pollen types such as Rumex , the Rubiaceae and the spores, had a markedly peaked distribution. Vaccinium , an important member of the woodland and moorland plant communities, was scarcely represented in the surface samples. The distribution of arboreal pollen at increasing distances from the woodland edge has been examined by analysing polsters collected along three transect lines. A very rapid decline in arboreal pollen within 100 m of the woodland edge was observed in each case. The application of these results to the ecological interpretation of pollen diagrams is considered.