The disappearance of Sphagnum imbricatum from Butterburn Flow, UK: a reply to comments by Bjorn Robroek et al.

We welcome the comments by Bjorn Robroek et al. (The Holocene 19 (2009) 1093—1094, this issue) on our paper (McClymont et al., The Holocene 18 (2008) 991-1002) and the opportunity to discuss further the complexities that surround the disappearance of Sphagnum imbricatum from Butterburn Flow (our study), and the implications for understanding the disappearance of this species in northwest Europe. We also wish to clarify our site of study; we presented data only from Butterburn Flow, northern England. Although we note that the disappearance of S. imbricatum here is part of a wider European decline in the late Holocene, we did not present data from Wales or Ireland as suggested in the opening paragraph of Robroek’s comment. We also noted that the replacement of S. imbricatum by S. magellanicum occurred over c. 44 years, but proposed that it may have been longer owing to evidence for reduced peat accumulation across the transition.