The POLLANDCAL network
The POLlen-LANDscape CALibration (POLLANDCAL) Network received sponsorship from NordForsk (formerly NorFA, the Nordic Research Council) between 2001-2005.
The POLLANDCAL network had the major aim to develop and apply powerful tools to the study of the pollen–vegetation relationship to produce reliable quantitative reconstructions of past vegetation and landscapes. The network is still active today and works with collaborative projects within various constellations of POLLANDCAL members together with scientists from other disciplines and research groups. POLLANDCAL’s research strategy is based mainly on a simulation approach to clarify the pollen–vegetation relationship considering interspecific differences in pollen dispersal and deposition and realistic spatial distribution of source plants in the landscape (Sugita 1993, 1994; Sugita et al. 1999). User-friendly software was developed for the application of these models (Middleton and Bunting 2004; Bunting and Middleton 2005), and a large number of simulation experiments were performed to obtain insights on pollen–vegetation relationships and their significance for the interpretation of pollen records. Moreover, several studies focused on estimating pollen productivity in different regions, and some tested the REVEALS model (Hellman et al. 2008; Soepboer et al. 2008) to reconstruct regional vegetation in different regions of Europe.