ABSTRACT
The Arabian Peninsula hosts some of the most extreme environments in the world. Arabian ecosystems are largely semi-arid to hyper-arid and yet are often highly biodiverse and unique owing to a location at a biogeographic nexus. There is an urgent need to better understand ecosystem resilience to biotic and abiotic disturbance; however, the modern vegetation across much of the sub-continent is still poorly understood. Palaeoecological records in Arabia have the potential to fill in gaps in our fundamental understanding of vegetation responses to climate, disturbance, and human modification; however, to do this, data must be accessible and easy to find. To this end, within the framework of the relaunch of the African Pollen Database, here we review existing palaeoecological datasets from the Arabian Peninsula, inventory those which are available, and synthesize results from these records. Due to the dearth of pre-Holocene information, this synthesis focuses on reconstructing vegetation from the Holocene Humid Period to today with emphasis on the impact of aridification and changing human livelihoods and culture on landscapes. Finally, as Arabia is perhaps the least well-studied region within the African Pollen Database, we offer some suggestions about fruitful directions for future palaeoecological research in this area.
