The evolution of a coastal peatland at Byron Bay, Australia: Multi-proxy evidence from the microfossil record

Peatlands are highly valuable ecosystems for their ecological functions as well as their economic and societal values (Charman 2002). Yet they are also highly vulnerable to degradation by a range of anthropogenic activities and climate change (Charman 2002; Gorham and Rochefort 2003; O’Connell 2003; Rochefort et al. 2003; Vasander et al. 2003). In Australia, peatlands are an unusual and infrequent component of the landscape (Whinam et al. 2003), mostly distributed in the alpine areas of the southeast of the continent (Clarke and Martin 1999). However, areas of peat also occur in the coastal lowlands, often in dune swales, both on