Macrophyte and Charophyte fossils from Southern Italy: an useful proxy to reconstruct Adriatic coastal environmental changes (Mediterranean Sea).

The Late Quaternary climatic oscillations caused important changes in coastal system in the Mediterranean area. Sea level changes mark a series of geomorphological and environmental variations. Macrophyte and Charophyte plant remains from coastal lake cores, are useful tools studying these environment for their specific sensibility to ecological changes (depth, salinity, temperature, energy, susbstrate, Ph, etc..). The study sites are two ancient coastal lake systems (Lago Battaglia, now dry; Laghi Alimini) and a wetland area (Ariscianne), along the Adriatic coast of Apulia (southern Italy). The chronology, provided by AMS radiocarbon date, ascribes the cores to middle and late Holocene. Data collected show a diversification in local vegetation pattern along the successions, outlining transformations in sedimentation basins through time, related to sea-level changes and geomorphological coastal processes according to other proxy available for the same cores (i.e. pollen and faunal analysis, magnetic susceptivity, loss on ignition). The relationship between limnic and telmatic species gives also information about both local and regional lake-level fluctuations.