Evidence of early human disturbance in high elevation upper Nilgiris based on paleofire records and lipid biomarkers

Abstract

Humans have extensively altered the global environment, changing the ecosystem structure and disrupting the equilibrium between climate and vegetation. Human migration in response to prolonged or abrupt climate change during the Holocene has been recorded in many regions of the world, especially in temperate. Vegetation shifts in the past of tropical montane forest-grassland ecosystem mosaic in Nilgiris is well documented using stable isotope studies and palynology. Here we present the results from geochemical and biological analysis of peat samples to understand fire-vegetation relationship and also to establish role of human in altering the stability of the ecosystem. We evaluated charcoal records to interpret paleofires, coprophilous fungal spores to understand levels of herbivory, n-alkane to infer past climate and vegetation shifts and faecal sterols to understand human interferences.