The late Miocene is marked by pronounced environmental changes and the appearance of strong temperature and precipitation seasonality. Although environmental heterogeneity is to be expected during this time, it is challenging to reconstruct palaeoenvironments using plant fossils. We investigated leaves and dispersed spores/pollen from 6.4–6 Ma strata in the intermontane Florina-Ptolemais-Servia Basin (FPS) of northwestern Greece. To assess how well plant fossils reflect the actual vegetation of the FPS, we assigned fossil-taxa to biomes providing a measure for environmental heterogeneity. Additionally, the palynological assemblage was compared to pollen spectra from modern lake sediments to assess biases in spore/pollen representation in the pollen record. We found a close match of the Vegora assemblage with modern Fagus–Abies forests of Turkey. Using taxonomic affinities of leaf fossils, we further established close similarities of the Vegora assemblage with modern laurophyllous oak forests of Afghanistan. Finally, using information from sedimentary environment and taphonomy, we distinguished local and distantly growing vegetation types. We then subjected the plant assemblage of Vegora to different methods of climate reconstruction and discussed their potentials and limitations. Leaf and spore/pollen records allow accurate reconstructions of palaeoenvironments in the FPS, whereas extra-regional vegetation from coastal lowlands is likely not captured.

中文翻译：

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从古植物学数据推断出希腊西北部弗洛里纳-托勒迈斯-Servia盆地间墨西拿的植被和气候：植物化石如何很好地反映过去的环境？

中新世晚期以明显的环境变化以及强烈的温度和降水季节出现为特征。尽管在这段时间里环境异质性是可预期的，但是使用植物化石重建古环境是具有挑战性的。我们调查了希腊西北部弗洛里纳-托勒迈斯-Servia盆地（FPS）内6.4–6 Ma地层的叶片和分散的孢子/花粉。为了评估植物化石对FPS实际植被的反映程度，我们为生物群系分配了化石分类单元，以衡量环境异质性。此外，将花粉组合与现代湖泊沉积物的花粉光谱进行比较，以评估花粉记录中孢子/花粉表现形式的偏倚。我们发现Vegora组件与现代产品非常匹配土耳其Fagus–Abies森林。利用叶子化石的分类学相似性，我们进一步建立了Vegora组合与阿富汗现代月桂叶栎林的相似之处。最后，利用来自沉积环境和分类学的信息，我们区分了本地和远距离生长的植被类型。然后，我们对Vegora的植物组合进行了不同的气候重建方法，并讨论了其潜力和局限性。叶子和孢子/花粉的记录可以精确重建FPS中的古环境，而沿海低地的区域外植被则可能无法捕获。