65. Makri paleolake in Laganas, Zakynthos Island (Greece)

Abstract

Zakynthos Island is located in the southeast Ionian Sea (eastern Mediterranean) having a surface area of c. 406 km. It is characterised by typical Mediterranean climate conditions, with dry summers and wet winters. Based on meteorological data from the town of Zakynthos (1971–2000), the mean annual temperature is 18 °C (mean winter: 11 °C; mean summer 26 ° C); the mean annual precipitation is 836 mm with ∼75%of the rain falling betweenOctober andFebruary (http://climatlas.hnms.gr/sdi/). Owing to a heterogenous landscape and geology, Zakynthos Island has a diverse flora consisting of 1122 native taxa, including 11 endemics of the Ionian islands and 36 Greek endemics (Valli et al. 2019). Typical taxa comprise Pinus halepensis Mill., Olea europaea L., Ceratonia siliqua L., Pistacia lentiscus L., Quercus ilex L., Arbutus unedo L., Spartium junceum L., and Calicotome villosa (Poir.) Link (Poirazidis et al. 2017). Forabetterunderstandingof thevegetationevolution of Zakynthos Island during the Holocene, 32 samples from a 30-m-long sediment core fromMakri paleolake inLaganas (37° 45' 27.22"N, 20° 53' 20.23"E;Avramidis et al. 2017)were palynologically analysed.The palynological preparation included sediment weighing, spiking with Lycopodium spores (Lund University, Batch No. 1031), treatment with hydrogen chloride (HCl, 30%) and hydrogen fluoride (HF, 40%), and sieving (10 μm). The identification of pollen grains followed Beug (2004).