Bohemian Hercynides versus Western Carpathians: A crucial biogeographic boundary of Europe during the last glacial epoch

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, MIS2) and subsequent Late Glacial are with no doubt the key periods for an interpretation of the post-glacial history of biota. During the last decades, several ground-breaking hypotheses have been proposed in order to provide historical arguments for the biogeographic patterns which are observed elsewhere in the Word. Among these, the “microrefugia” or “cryptic refugia” hypothesis is the most influential and, at the same moment, probably the most relevant for the central part of Europe. Nevertheless, this hypothesis remains hardly verifiable without the support of reliable and well-dated fossil evidence. In this review we have collected and newly interpreted fossil evidence currently available for plants, snails and small vertebrates in the area of the present Czech and Slovak Republics. In the light of such evidence, the boundary between the Bohemian Hercynides and the Western Carpathians appears to be a particularly important area in which the present biogeographic patterns in temperate Europe have largely emerged.