Application of machine learning methods to palaeoecological data

A palaeoecological study was conducted to investigate past environmental conditions and vegetation dynamics around the southwestern Ljubljana Moor. In order to find potential regularities and/or dependencies among co-existent plant species through time, different machine learning methods were applied to pollen records from the cores taken at Bistra and Hocevarica. The data comprised relative pollen frequencies of the most common plant genera/families at particular core depths that correspond to particular ages in the Early and Mid Holocene periods. The applied methods include equation discovery and hierarchical clustering. Both methods have found plausible and explainable relationships among identified plant genera/families. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.