Affiliations: School of Bioscience, the University of Nottingham,
Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia and Department of
Environmental Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka 1342, Bangladesh | School of Environmental Science, The University of
Shiga Prefecture, 2500 Hassaka-cho Hikone, Shiga Pref. 522-8533, Japan
Abstract: Lignin phenol and stable isotope have been used as a biomarker to trace the sources of sedimentary organic
matter (SOM), reconstruction of paleovegetation and climate changes without considering the possible occurrence
of fossil pollen grain in sedimentary matrix. Lignin phenol analysis of modern pollen showed that both gymnosperm
and angiosperm pollen yielded very high concentration of cinnamyl (C) phenols as compared to that of vanillyl (V) and
syringyl (S) phenols (C/V=3.05–23.67) with variation in isotopic compositions (δ^{13}=−20.2
to −28.3‰ and δ^{15}N =−9.2 to 1.7‰). Therefore the isotopic and
lignin phenol signatures in SOM might be distorted to some extent by fossil pollen. This was especially true in the
sediments of low altitude and latitude continental lakes and coastal areas where significant amount of fossil pollen
might be deposited. Therefore, before using lignin phenol as a biomarker, one
should consider a possible distortion derived from lignin of fossil pollen in sedimentary matrix.
