Abstract
Palaeoecological studies of sediment records in the western margins of southern South America have revealed the vegetation dynamic under the influence of major regional climate drivers such as the Southern Westerly Winds, Southern Annular Mode and the El Niño Southern Oscillation phenomenon. Despite the substantial number of palynological records that have been studied, very few quantitative pollen-based climate reconstructions using surface sample have been attempted. In this context, our objective is first to investigate the modern pollen-vegetation-climate relationships in the western Patagonian region. Results reveal that the modern pollen dataset reflects the main vegetation types and that summer precipitation and winter temperature represent the main climate parameters controlling vegetation distribution. Secondly using this pollen-climate dataset we evaluate and compare the performance of two models (Weighted Averaging Partial Least Squares and Modern Analog Technique). We applied these models to perform climate reconstructions from two oceanic pollen records from western Patagonia. Compared with independent climate indicators, our pollen pollen-inferred climate reconstructions reveal the same overall trends showing the potential of pollen-climate transfer functions applied to this region. This study provides much needed data for quantitative climate reconstructions in South America which still need to be improved by enlarging the modern pollen dataset.