The vegetation history of Cumbria, in north-west England, has been intensively studied for many years by pollen analysis, particularly in the upland area of the Lake District but also the lowlands of the river Eden valley to the east and the coastal lowlands to the south and north. However, the Shap Fells, an eastern outlier of the upland massif, has so far not been the subject of palynological research despite it being an arc...

Global climate change could alter the range, abundance, and interactions of species, potentially favouring invasive species and harming endemics. Ship rats ( Rattus rattus ) are one of the world's worst invasive predators but are typically absent from Aotearoa New Zealand's native Fuscospora cliffortioides (mountain beech) forest above 1000 m. Stoats ( Mustela erminea ) are another damaging invasive predator in Aotearoa New Ze...

We reconstruct one of the longest relative sea‐level (RSL) records in north‐west Europe from the north coast of mainland Scotland, using data collected from three sites in Loch Eriboll (Sutherland) that we combine with other studies from the region. Following deglaciation, RSL fell from a Lateglacial highstand of +6−8 m OD (Ordnance Datum = ca. mean sea level) at ca. 15 k cal a BP to below present, then rose to an early Holoce...

Relative sea‐level (RSL) change is reconstructed for central Cumbria, UK, based on litho‐ and biostratigraphical analysis from the Lateglacial to the late Holocene. The RSL curve is constrained using ten new radiocarbon‐dated sea‐level index points in addition to published data. The sea‐level curve identifies a clear Lateglacial sea‐level highstand approximately 2.3 m OD at c. 15–17 k cal a BP followed by rapid RSL fall to bel...

Aim To present radiocarbon dated early Holocene pollen analytical data from two sites on the northern plain of the Isle of Man and to discuss the implications of the vegetation history in relation to severance of the island from the British Isles and to identify further evidence for divergent biogeographical development previously exemplified by the survival and apparent dwarfism of late glacial Megaloceros giganteus (Giant De...

The adoption of cereal cultivation is a key benchmark in the transition from Mesolithic hunter–gatherer foraging to Neolithic farming economies, but the nature, timing and ecological–cultural context of the earliest cereal use in the British Isles and northwest Europe is still uncertain. We present AMS radiocarbon dating and fine‐resolution pollen evidence from the Isle of Man for cereal growing in the latter stages of a disti...

Collections of three species of oreos (smooth oreo, Pseudocyttus maculatus; black oreo, Allocyttus niger; and warty oreo, A. verrucosus ) from Australasian waters were examined for genetic variation. Allozyme heterozygosity was high in each species (25–29 loci: mean heterozygosity per locus per sample ranging from 0.100 to 0.148), but mitochondrial DNA variation was less extensive (10 six‐base restriction enzymes: nucleotide d...

Samples of Neocyttus rhomboidalis from eight areas off southern Australia and eastern New Zealand were examined to assess the stock structure of the species. No spatial heterogeneity was detected for mitochondrial DNA variation after restriction analysis by two enzymes detecting polymorphic cut sites. Twenty mtDNA haplotypes were recorded, with an overall haplotype diversity of 0·683. Twenty‐eight allozyme loci were examined;...