ISSN 1028-334X, Doklady Earth Sciences, 2011, Vol. 437, Part 1, pp. 380–382. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2011. Original Russian Text © A.Yu. Puzachenko, A.K. Markova, 2011, published in Doklady Akademii Nauk, 2011, Vol. 437, No. 1, pp. 114–116. 380 The transition between the Pleistocene and the Holocene is the key period in integrated research of the reaction of biota to global climate variations. The time–space variations for European natural com- plexes are of particular interest, since the contrasts caused by the direct influence of glaciation were espe- cially manifest there. The history of the latest glacia- tion is described in a comprehensive way in the scien- tific literature. Models of spatial differentiation of European natural complexes have been created with varying degrees of detail for a series of climatic periods during the Valdai (Vistula) glaciation and the Early Holocene based on a vast body of paleontological and paleoclimatic data [1–3]. In mid-2010, detailed data on the climatic variations in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene became available; these data were generated based on analysis of the isotope composition of ice in the Greenland ice sheet [4–6]. The information accu- mulated allows conducting general analysis of the effect of global climatic variations on biodiversity in Europe during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene (33–8 ka). The investigation was based on the results obtained over the last two decades [3]. The source data on diver- sity of the vegetation cover are represented by spore– pollen spectra (431 sections), and the data on diversity of theriocomplexes, by lists of mammal species (400 locations). The methodological approaches to application of multidimensional analysis to paleobiolog- ical data were taken from the studies of A.V. Kozharinov and Yu.G. Puzachenko [7, 8]. We extended these approaches to paleozoological data for the first time [3]. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling was used as the principal tool of multidimensional analysis [9]. As a result, a limited set of linear independent macrovari- ables was generated, which contained generalized information on the spatial structure of the diversity. The method used by us is similar to thermodynamic description of physical systems using special macrova- riables (temperature, pressure, volume, and entropy). The objective of the study was to justify the use of the information parameters determined from the mac- rovariables for description of variations in spatial biodiversity. The descriptive models were created independently for each of the six consecutive time periods: the Bryansk interstadial (33–24 ka), the maximum cooling during the latest glaciation (24–17 ka), the Late Glacial (17–12.4 ka), the Bolling–Allerod interstadial (12.4–10.9 ka), the late Dryas stadial (10.9–10.2 ka), and the Early Holocene (Preboreal–Boreal) (10.2–8 ka). We demonstrated previously that the number of macrovariables is different for different time periods, but in each of them the principal macrovariables have correlations (in the general case, nonlinear correla- tions) with both geographic positions of the locations and their taxonomic diversity [3]. At the second stage of the investigation, the Shan- non–Weaver entropy, the Kullback–Leibler diver- gence measure [10], and the sums of these parameters for all variables were calculated for each of the macro- variables. The Kullback–Leibler divergence is a quantitative measure of deviation from a selected model distribu- tion. The normal distribution with the average and variance being equal to the average and variance of the macrovariable was used as the model. The model cor- Using Multidimensional Analysis and Information Functions for Macrodescription of European Natural Complexes in the Second Part of the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene A. Yu. Puzachenko and A. K. Markova Presented by Academician V.M. Kotlyakov October 30, 2010 Received November 17, 2010 Abstract—This article analyzes the effect of geographic factors on variations in the species diversity of mam- mals and plants for the European territory. Multidimensional analysis and a number of information parame- ters have been applied for the first time, which allowed identifying objective indicators of mammal and plant diversity for different time periods in the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene. DOI: 10.1134/S1028334X1103007X Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetnyi per. 29, Moscow, 119017 Russia GEOGRAPHY