QUATERNARY HISTORY OF FAG US IN THE ITALIAN PENINSULA

Abstract

The Upper Pleistocene and Holocene history of the genus Fagus in Italy is reviewed. Fagus was present in central Italy during the last interglacial (Eemian), when it was virtually absent from the rest of Europe, markedly expanded in the following forest phases (St Germain I and St Germain II), and persisted during the last glacial period in central and southern Italy, from where it started a new spread already in the Lateglacial. However, in the northern Apennines and at the foothills of the Alps Fagus immigrated later and expanded only in the mid-Holocene, generally with an east to west trend.