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The degree of completeness of large-scale floristic inventories is often difficult to judge. We compared prior vascular plant species inventories of the Mediterranean island of Limnos (North Aegean, Greece) with 231 recent records from 2016-2021. Together with the recent records, the known number of vascular plant species on the island is 960 native taxa, 63 established neophytes, and 27 species of as yet casual status for a total of 1050 taxa. We looked at a number of traits (plant family, size, flower color, perceptibility, habitat, reproduction period, rarity, and status) to investigate whether they were overrepresented in the dataset of the newly found taxa. Overrepresentation was found in some plant families (e.g., Poaceae and Chenopodiaceae) and for traits such as hydrophytic life form, unobtrusive flower color, coastal as well as agricultural and ruderal habitats, and late (summer/autumn) reproduction period. Apart from the well-known fact of esthetic bias, we found evidence for ecological and perceptibility biases. Plant species inventories based on prior piecemeal collated data should focus on regionally specific species groups and underrepresented and rare habitats.
The most profound shift in the African hydroclimate of the last 1 million years occurred around 300 thousand years (ka) ago.
This change in African hydroclimate is manifest as an east-west change in moisture balance that cannot be fully explained through linkages to high latitude climate systems.
The east-west shift is, instead, probably driven by a shift in the tropical Walker Circulation related to sea surface temperature change driven by orbital forcing. Comparing records of past vegetation change, and hominin evolution and development, with this breakpoint in the climate system is challenging owing to the paucity of study sites available and uncertainties regarding the dating of records. Notwithstanding these uncertainties we find that, broadly speaking, both vegetation and hominins change around 300 ka.
The vegetative backdrop suggests that relative abundance of vegetative resources shifted from western to eastern Africa, although resources would have persisted across the continent.
The climatic and vegetation changes probably provided challenges for hominins and are broadly coincident with the appearance of Homo sapiens (ca 315 ka) and the emergence of Middle Stone Age technology.
The concomitant changes in climate, vegetation and hominin evolution suggest that these factors are closely intertwined.
This article is part of the theme issue 'Tropical forests in the deep human past'.