The origin and vegetation development of the Rejvíz pine bog and the history of the surrounding landscape during the Holocene.

The Rejvíz bog is an extensive mire complex in Central Europe, with up to 7 m deep sediments and two natural lakes. Recent vegetation is one of the best preserved examples of Pinus uncinata subsp. uliginosa (syn. P. rotundata) bog woodland in Central Europe. The origin and development of the mire and changes in the surrounding landscape vegetation are reconstructed using sediment stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, pollen analysis and plant-macrofossils analysis, with particular emphasis on the processes that resulted in the origin of Rejvíz bog and on pine woodland dynamics. Based on identified species the water level changes were reconstructed. The sediment started to accumulate more than 9000 years ago at an open mixed-woodland spring with Dichodontium palustre. Later, poor fen vegetation with sedges and horsetails developed. Around 6170 cal. yr BC the fen became inundated for 2000 years and (semi)aquatic vegetation thrived. Next step in the succession followed a decline in water level which resulted in the development of drier oligothrophic vegetationwith a high representation of pine and dwarf shrubs. After ca 1020 cal. yr BC the mire became the bog it is now. Three wooded stages appeared in both the minerotrophic and ombrotrophic developmental phases: before 6720 cal. yr BC, during ca 1960–1020 cal. yr BC and recently. The vegetation in the surrounding landscape developed without marked human interventions up till ca the last six or five centuries, when deforestation and later settlement took place. Comparison with published data from the Góry Bystrzyckie/Orlické hory Mts suggests that not only regional, but also local vegetation changed in a similar way across the middle-altitude eastern Sudetes, following oscillations in climate rather than local changes in mire water regime.