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The terrestrial ecosystem in the Yellow River Source Area (YRSA) is sensitive to climate change and human impacts, although past vegetation change and the degree of human disturbance are still largely unknown. A 170-cm-long sediment core covering the last 7,400 years was collected from Lake Xingxinghai (XXH) in the YRSA. Pollen, together with a series of other environmental proxies (including grain size, total organic carbon (TOC) and carbonate content), were analysed to explore past vegetation and environmental changes for the YRSA. Dominant and common pollen components-Cyperaceae, Poaceae, Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae and Asteraceae-are stable throughout the last 7,400 years. Slight vegetation change is inferred from an increasing trend of Cyperaceae and decreasing trend of Poaceae, suggesting that alpine steppe was replaced by alpine meadow at ca. 3.5 ka cal bp. The vegetation transformation indicates a generally wetter climate during the middle and late Holocene, which is supported by increased amounts of TOC and Pediastrum (representing high water-level) and is consistent with previous past climate records from the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau. Our results find no evidence of human impact on the regional vegetation surrounding XXH, hence we conclude the vegetation change likely reflects the regional climate signal.
Temporal and spatial stability of the vegetation climate relationship is a basic ecological assumption for pollen-based quantitative inferences of past climate change and for predicting future vegetation. We explore this assumption for the Holocene in eastern continental Asia (China, Mongolia). Boosted regression trees (BRT) between fossil pollen taxa percentages (Abies, Artemisia, Betula, Chenopodiaceae, Cyperaceae, Ephedra, Picea, Pinus, Poaceae and Quercus) and climate model outputs of mean annual precipitation (P-ann) and mean temperature of the warmest month (Mt(wa)) for 9 and 6 ka (ka = thousand years before present) were set up and results compared to those obtained from relating modern pollen to modern climate. Overall, our results reveal only slight temporal differences in the pollen climate relationships. Our analyses suggest that the importance of P-ann compared with Mt(wa) for taxa distribution is higher today than it was at 6 ka and 9 ka. In particular, the relevance of P-ann for Picea and Pinus increases and has become the main determinant. This change in the climate tree pollen relationship parallels a widespread tree pollen decrease in north-central China and the eastern Tibetan Plateau. We assume that this is at least partly related to vegetation climate disequilibrium originating from human impact. Increased atmospheric CO2 concentration may have permitted the expansion of moisture-loving herb taxa (Cyperaceae and Poaceae) during the late Holocene into arid/semi-arid areas. We furthermore find that the pollen climate relationship between north-central China and the eastern Tibetan Plateau is generally similar, but that regional differences are larger than temporal differences. In summary, vegetation climate relationships in China are generally stable in space and time, and pollen-based climate reconstructions can be applied to the Holocene. Regional differences imply the calibration-set should be restricted spatially.
We present a calibration-set based on modern pollen and satellite-based Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) observations of woody cover (including needleleaved, broadleaved and total tree cover) in eastern continental Asia, which shows good performance under cross-validation with the modern analogue technique (all the coefficients of determination between observed and predicted values are greater than 0.65). The calibration-set is used to reconstruct woody cover from a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized fossil pollen dataset (including 274 cores) with 500-year resolution over the last 22 kyr. The spatial range of forest has not noticeably changed in eastern continental Asia during the last 22 kyr, although woody cover has, especially at the margin of the eastern Tibetan Plateau and in the forest-steppe transition area of north-central China. Vegetation was sparse during the LGM in the present forested regions, but woody cover increased markedly at the beginning of the Bolling/Allerod period (B/A; ca. 14.5 ka BP) and again at the beginning of the Holocene (ca. 11.5 ka BP), and is related to the enhanced strength of the East Asian Summer Monsoon. Forest flourished in the mid Holocene (ca. 8 ka BP) possibly due to favourable climatic conditions. In contrast, cover was stable in southern China (high cover) and arid central Asia (very low cover) throughout the investigated period. Forest cover increased in the north-eastern part of China during the Holocene. Comparisons of these regional pollen-based results with simulated forest cover from runs of a global climate model (for 9, 6 and 0 ka BP (ECHAM5/JSBACH similar to 1.125 degrees spatial resolution)) reveal many similarities in temporal change. The Holocene woody cover history of eastern continental Asia is different from that of other regions, likely controlled by different climatic variables, i.e. moisture in eastern continental Asia; temperature in northern Eurasia and North America. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Recent global warming is pronounced in high-latitude regions (e.g. northern Asia), and will cause the vegetation to change. Future vegetation trends (e.g. the "arctic greening") will feed back into atmospheric circulation and the global climate system. Understanding the nature and causes of past vegetation changes is important for predicting the composition and distribution of future vegetation communities. Fossil pollen records from 468 sites in northern and eastern Asia were biomised at selected times between 40 cal ka bp and today. Biomes were also simulated using a climate-driven biome model and results from the two approaches compared in order to help understand the mechanisms behind the observed vegetation changes. The consistent biome results inferred by both approaches reveal that long-term and broad-scale vegetation patterns reflect global- to hemispheric-scale climate changes. Forest biomes increase around the beginning of the late deglaciation, become more widespread during the early and middle Holocene, and decrease in the late Holocene in fringe areas of the Asian Summer Monsoon. At the southern and southwestern margins of the taiga, forest increases in the early Holocene and shows notable species succession, which may have been caused by winter warming at ca. 7 cal ka bp. At the northeastern taiga margin (central Yakutia and northeastern Siberia), shrub expansion during the last deglaciation appears to prevent the permafrost from thawing and hinders the northward expansion of evergreen needle-leaved species until ca. 7 cal ka bp. The vegetation-climate disequilibrium during the early Holocene in the taiga-tundra transition zone suggests that projected climate warming will not cause a northward expansion of evergreen needle-leaved species.
Simulating biome distribution on the Tibetan Plateau using a modified global vegetation model
(2011)
We used a regionally modified global vegetation model (BIOME4-Tibet) to simulate biome distribution on the Tibetan Plateau under current climate conditions derived from regional meteorological observations. The bioclimatic limits (mean temperatures of the coldest and warmest months, minimum temperature, growing degree-days on 5 degrees C and 0 degrees C bases) for some key alpine plant functional types (temperate deciduous and conifer trees, boreal deciduous and conifer trees, desert woody plants, tundra shrubs, cold herbaceous plants, and lichens/forbs) were redefined based on regional vegetation-climate relationships. Modern vegetation maps confirmed that the BIOME4-Tibet model does a better job of simulating biome patterns on the plateau (gridcell agreement 52%) than the original BIOME4 model (35%). This improved model enhanced our ability to simulate temperate conifer forest, cool conifer and mixed forest, evergreen taiga, temperate xerophytic shrubland, temperate grassland and desert, and steppe and shrub tundra biomes, but made a negligible or reduced difference to the prediction of temperate deciduous forest, warm-temperate mixed forest, and three tundra biomes (erect dwarf-shrub tundra, prostrate dwarf-shrub tundra, and cushion forb, lichen, and moss tundra). Future modification of the vegetation model, by increasing the number of shrub and herb plant functional types, re-parameterization of more precise bioclimatic constraints, and improved representation of soil, permafrost, and snow processes, will be needed to better characterize the distribution of alpine vegetation on the Tibetan Plateau.
Patterns of past vegetation changes over time and space can help facilitate better understanding of the interactions among climate, ecosystem, and human impact. Biome changes in China over the last 22,000 yr (calibrated radiocarbon date, a BP) were numerically reconstructed by using a standard approach of pollen-plant functional type-biome assignment (biomization). The biomization procedure involves pollen data from 2434 surface sites and 228 fossil sites with a high quality of pollen count and C-14 dating, 51 natural and three anthropogenic plant functional types (PFTs), as well as 19 natural and one anthropogenic biome. Surface pollen-based reconstruction of modern natural biome patterns is in good agreement (74.4%) with actual vegetation distribution in China. However, modem large-scale anthropogenic biome reconstruction has not been successful based on the current setup of three anthropogenic PFTs (plantation, secondary, and disturbed PFT) because of the limitation of non-species level pollen identification and the difficulty in the clear assignment of disturbed PFTs. The non-anthropogenic biome distributions of 44 time slices at 500-year intervals show large-scale discrepant and changed vegetation patterns from the last glacial maximum (LGM) to the Holocene throughout China. From 22 ka BP to 19 ka BP, temperate grassland, xerophytic shrubland, and desert dominated northern China, whereas cold or cool forests flourished in central China. Warm-temperate evergreen forests were restricted to far southern China, and tropical forests were absent During 18.5 ka BP to 12 ka BP, cold, cool, and dry biomes extended to some parts of northern, westem, and eastern China. Warm-temperate evergreen and mixed forests gradually expanded to occupy the whole of southern China. A slight northward shift of forest biomes occurred from 15 ka BP to 12 lea BP. During 11.5 ka BP to 9 ka BP, temperate grassland and shrubland gradually stretched to northern and western China. Cold and cool forests widely expanded into northern and central China, as well as in the northern margin of South China along with temperate deciduous forest. Since the early mid-Holocene (approximately 8.5 ka BP to 5.5 ka BP), all forest biomes shifted northward at the expense of herbaceous and shrubby biomes. Simultaneously, cold and cool forest biomes occupied the marginal areas of the Tibetan Plateau and the high mountains in western China. During the middle to late Holocene, from 5 ka to the present, temperate grassland and xerophytic shrubland expanded to the south and east, whereas temperate deciduous forests slightly shifted southward. After 3 lea BP, forest biomes were absent in western China and on the Tibetan plateau surface. Dramatic biome shifts from the LGM to the Holocene were observed in the forest-grassland ecotone and transitional zones between temperate and subtropical climates, between subtropical and tropical regions, and in the mountainous margins of the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Evidence showed more human disturbances during the late Holocene. More pollen records and historical documents are therefore further needed to understand fully the human disturbance-induced large-scale forest changes. In addition, more classifications of anthropogenic biome or land cover, more distinct assignment of pollen taxa to anthropogenic PFTs, and more effective numerical and/or mechanistic techniques in building large-scale human disturbances are required. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Pollen-based biome reconstruction on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau during the past 15,000 years
(2022)
Reconstruction of past vegetation change is critical for better understanding the potential impact of future global change on the fragile alpine ecosystems of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). In this paper, pollen assemblages comprising 58 records from the QTP, spanning the past 15 kyrs, were collected to reconstruct biome compositions using a standard approach. Six forest biomes were identified mainly on the southeastern plateau, exhibiting a pattern of gradual expansion along the eastern margin during early to mid-Holocene times. The alpine meadow biome was separately identified based on an updated scheme, and showed notable westward expansions towards lower latitudes and higher altitudes during early Holocene times. Consistent patterns of migration could also be identified for the alpine steppe biome, which moved eastward during the late Holocene after 4 ka. As the dominant biome type, temperate steppe was distributed widely over the QTP with minor migration patterns, except for a progressive expansion to lower altitudes in the late Holocene times. The desert biome was inferred mainly as covering the northwestern plateau and the Qaidam Basin, in relatively restricted areas. The spatial distribution of the reconstructed biomes represent the large-scale vegetation gradient on the QTP. Monsoonal precipitation expressed predominant controls on the development of alpine ecosystems, while the variations in desert vegetation responded to regional moisture brought by the mid-latitude Westerlies. Temperature changes played relatively minor roles in the variations of alpine vegetation, but exerted more significant impacts on the forest biomes.
The Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) is one of the most important climate systems, whose variability and driving mechanisms are of broad interest for academic and societal communities. Here, we present a well-dated high-resolution pollen analysis from a 4.82-m long sediment core taken from Basomtso, in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau (TP), which depicts the regional climate changes of the past millennium. Our results show that subalpine coniferous forest was dominant around Basomtso from ca. 867 to ca. 750 cal. yr BP, indicating a warm and semi-humid climate. The timberline in the study area significantly decreased from ca. 750 to ca.100 cal. yr BP, and a cold climate, corresponding to the Little Ice Age (LIA) prevailed. Since ca. 100 cal. yr BP, the vegetation type changed to forest-meadow with rising temperatures and moisture. Ordination analysis reveals that the migration of vegetation was dominated by regional temperatures and then by moisture. Further comparisons between the Basomtso pollen record and the regional temperature reconstructions underscore the relevance of the Basomtso record from the southeastern TP for regional and global climatologies. Our pollen based moisture reconstruction demonstrates the strong multicentennial-scale link to ISM variability, providing solid evidence for the increase of monsoonal strengths over the past four centuries. Spectral analysis indicates the potential influence of solar forcing. However, a closer relationship has been observed between multicentennial ISM variations and Indian Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTs), suggesting that the variations in monsoonal precipitation over the southeastern TP are probably driven by the Indian Ocean Dipole on the multicentennial scale. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Alpine ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau are being threatened by ongoing climate warming and intensified human activities. Ecological time-series obtained from sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) are essential for understanding past ecosystem and biodiversity dynamics on the Tibetan Plateau and their responses to climate change at a high taxonomic resolution. Hitherto only few but promising studies have been published on this topic. The potential and limitations of using sedaDNA on the Tibetan Plateau are not fully understood. Here, we (i) provide updated knowledge of and a brief introduction to the suitable archives, region-specific taphonomy, state-of-the-art methodologies, and research questions of sedaDNA on the Tibetan Plateau; (ii) review published and ongoing sedaDNA studies from the Tibetan Plateau; and (iii) give some recommendations for future sedaDNA study designs. Based on the current knowledge of taphonomy, we infer that deep glacial lakes with freshwater and high clay sediment input, such as those from the southern and southeastern Tibetan Plateau, may have a high potential for sedaDNA studies. Metabarcoding (for microorganisms and plants), metagenomics (for ecosystems), and hybridization capture (for prehistoric humans) are three primary sedaDNA approaches which have been successfully applied on the Tibetan Plateau, but their power is still limited by several technical issues, such as PCR bias and incompleteness of taxonomic reference databases. Setting up high-quality and open-access regional taxonomic reference databases for the Tibetan Plateau should be given priority in the future. To conclude, the archival, taphonomic, and methodological conditions of the Tibetan Plateau are favorable for performing sedaDNA studies. More research should be encouraged to address questions about long-term ecological dynamics at ecosystem scale and to bring the paleoecology of the Tibetan Plateau into a new era.
Numerous pollen records across the upper Tibetan Plateau indicate that in the early part of the mid-Holocene, Kobresia-rich high-alpine meadows invaded areas formerly dominated by alpine steppe vegetation rich in Artemisia. We examine climate, land-use, and CO2 concentration changes as potential drivers for this marked vegetation change. The climatic implications of these vegetational shifts are explored by applying a newly developed pollen-based moisture-balance transfer-function to fossil pollen spectra from Koucha Lake on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau (34.0 degrees N; 97.2 degrees E; 4540 m a.s.l.) and Xuguo Lake on the central Tibetan Plateau (31.97 degrees N; 90.3 degrees E; 4595 m a.s.l.), both located in the meadow-steppe transition zone. Reconstructed moisture-balances were markedly reduced (by similar to 150-180 mm) during the early mid-Holocene compared to the late-Holocene. These findings contradict most other records from the Indian monsoonal realm and also most non-pollen records from the Tibetan Plateau that indicate a rather wet early- and mid-Holocene. The extent and timing of anthropogenic land-use involving grazing by large herbivores on the upper Tibetan Plateau and its possible impacts on high-alpine vegetation are still mostly unknown due to the lack of relevant archaeological evidence. Arguments against a mainly anthropogenic origin of Kobresia high-alpine meadows are the discovery of the widespread expansion of obviously 'natural' Kobresia meadows on the south-eastern Tibetan Plateau during the Lateglacial period indicating the natural origin of this vegetation type and the lack of any concurrence between modern human-driven vegetation shifts and the mid-Holocene compositional changes. Vegetation types are known to respond to atmospheric CO2 concentration changes, at least on glacial-interglacial scales. This assumption is confirmed by our sensitivity study where we model Tibetan vegetation at different CO2 concentrations of 375 (present-day), 260 (early Holocene), and 650 ppm (future scenario) using the BIOME4 global vegetation model. Previous experimental studies confirm that vegetation growing on dry and high sites is particularly sensitive to CO2 changes. Here we propose that the replacement of drought-resistant alpine steppes (that are well adapted to low CO2 concentrations) by mesic Kobresia meadows can, at least, be partly interpreted as a response to the increase of CO2 concentration since 7000 years ago due to fertilization and water-saving effects. Our hypothesis is corroborated by former CO2 fertilization experiments performed on various dry grasslands and by the strong recent expansion of high-alpine meadows documented by remote sensing studies in response to recent CO2 increases.
LegacyPollen 1.0
(2022)
Here we describe the LegacyPollen 1.0, a dataset of 2831 fossil pollen records with metadata, a harmonized taxonomy, and standardized chronologies.
A total of 1032 records originate from North America, 1075 from Europe, 488 from Asia, 150 from Latin America, 54 from Africa, and 32 from the Indo-Pacific.
The pollen data cover the late Quaternary (mostly the Holocene). The original 10 110 pollen taxa names (including variations in the notations) were harmonized to 1002 terrestrial taxa (including Cyperaceae), with woody taxa and major herbaceous taxa harmonized to genus level and other herbaceous taxa to family level.
The dataset is valuable for synthesis studies of, for example, taxa areal changes, vegetation dynamics, human impacts (e.g., deforestation), and climate change at global or continental scales.
The harmonized pollen and metadata as well as the harmonization table are available from PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.929773; Herzschuh et al., 2021). R code for the harmonization is provided at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5910972; Herzschuh et al., 2022) so that datasets at a customized harmonization level can be easily established.
Proxy-based reconstructions and modeling of Holocene spatiotemporal precipitation patterns for China and Mongolia have hitherto yielded contradictory results indicating that the basic mechanisms behind the East Asian Summer Monsoon and its interaction with the westerly jet stream remain poorly understood. We present quantitative reconstructions of Holocene precipitation derived from 101 fossil pollen records and analyse them with the help of a minimal empirical model. We show that the westerly jet-stream axis shifted gradually southward and became less tilted since the middle Holocene. This was tracked by the summer monsoon rain band resulting in an early-Holocene precipitation maximum over most of western China, a mid-Holocene maximum in north-central and northeastern China, and a late-Holocene maximum in southeastern China. Our results suggest that a correct simulation of the orientation and position of the westerly jet stream is crucial to the reliable prediction of precipitation patterns in China and Mongolia.
Encroachment of shrubs into the unique pastoral grassland ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau has significant impact on ecosystem services, especially forage production. We developed a process-based ecohydrological model to identify the relative importance of the main drivers of shrub encroachment for the alpine meadows within the Qinghai province. Specifically, we explored the effects of summer livestock grazing (intensity and type of livestock) together with the effects of climate warming, including interactions between herbaceous and woody vegetation and feedback loops between soil, water and vegetation. Under current climatic conditions and a traditional herd composition, an increasing grazing intensity above a threshold value of 0.32 +/- 0.10 large stock units (LSU) ha(-1) day(-1) changes the vegetation composition from herbaceous towards a woody and bare soil dominated system. Very high grazing intensity (above 0.8 LSU ha(-1) day(-1)) leads to a complete loss of any vegetation. Under warmer conditions, the vegetation showed a higher resilience against livestock farming. This resilience is enhanced when the herd has a higher browser : grazer ratio. A cooler climate has a shrub encroaching effect, whereas warmer conditions increase the cover of the herbaceous vegetation. This effect was primarily due to season length and an accompanied competitive loss of slower growing shrubs, rather than evaporative water loss leading to less soil water in deeper soil layers for deeper rooting shrubs. If climate warming is driving current shrub encroachment, we conclude it is only indirectly so. It would be manifest by an advancing shrubline and could be regarded as a climatic escape of specific shrub species such as Potentilla fruticosa. Under the recent high intensity of grazing, only herding by more browsing animals can potentially prevent both shrub encroachment and the complete loss of herbaceous vegetation.
The large variety of atmospheric circulation systems affecting the eastern Asian climate is reflected by the complex Asian vegetation distribution. Particularly in the transition zones of these circulation systems, vegetation is supposed to be very sensitive to climate change. Since proxy records are scarce, hitherto a mechanistic understanding of the past spatio-temporal climate-vegetation relationship is lacking. To assess the Holocene vegetation change and to obtain an ensemble of potential mid-Holocene biome distributions for eastern Asia, we forced the diagnostic biome model BIOME4 with climate anomalies of different transient Holocene climate simulations performed in coupled atmosphere-ocean(-vegetation) models. The simulated biome changes are compared with pollen-based biome records for different key regions.
In all simulations, substantial biome shifts during the last 6000 years are confined to the high northern latitudes and the monsoon-westerly wind transition zone, but the temporal evolution and amplitude of change strongly depend on the climate forcing. Large parts of the southern tundra are replaced by taiga during the mid-Holocene due to a warmer growing season and the boreal treeline in northern Asia is shifted northward by approx. 4 degrees in the ensemble mean, ranging from 1.5 to 6 degrees in the individual simulations, respectively. This simulated treeline shift is in agreement with pollen-based reconstructions from northern Siberia. The desert fraction in the transition zone is reduced by 21% during the mid-Holocene compared to pre-industrial due to enhanced precipitation. The desert-steppe margin is shifted westward by 5 degrees (1-9 degrees in the individual simulations). The forest biomes are expanded north-westward by 2 degrees, ranging from 0 to 4 degrees in the single simulations. These results corroborate pollen-based reconstructions indicating an extended forest area in north-central China during the mid-Holocene. According to the model, the forest-to-non-forest and steppe-to-desert changes in the climate transition zones are spatially not uniform and not linear since the mid-Holocene.
The large variety of atmospheric circulation systems affecting the eastern Asian climate is reflected by the complex Asian vegetation distribution. Particularly in the transition zones of these circulation systems, vegetation is supposed to be very sensitive to climate change. Since proxy records are scarce, hitherto a mechanistic understanding of the past spatio-temporal climate-vegetation relationship is lacking. To assess the Holocene vegetation change and to obtain an ensemble of potential mid-Holocene biome distributions for eastern Asia, we forced the diagnostic biome model BIOME4 with climate anomalies of different transient Holocene climate simulations performed in coupled atmosphere-ocean(-vegetation) models. The simulated biome changes are compared with pollen-based biome records for different key regions. In all simulations, substantial biome shifts during the last 6000 years are confined to the high northern latitudes and the monsoon-westerly wind transition zone, but the temporal evolution and amplitude of change strongly depend on the climate forcing. Large parts of the southern tundra are replaced by taiga during the mid-Holocene due to a warmer growing season and the boreal treeline in northern Asia is shifted northward by approx. 4 degrees in the ensemble mean, ranging from 1.5 to 6 degrees in the individual simulations, respectively. This simulated treeline shift is in agreement with pollen-based reconstructions from northern Siberia. The desert fraction in the transition zone is reduced by 21% during the mid-Holocene compared to pre-industrial due to enhanced precipitation. The desert-steppe margin is shifted westward by 5 degrees (1-9 degrees in the individual simulations). The forest biomes are expanded north-westward by 2 degrees, ranging from 0 to 4 degrees in the single simulations. These results corroborate pollen-based reconstructions indicating an extended forest area in north-central China during the mid-Holocene. According to the model, the forest-to-non-forest and steppe-to-desert changes in the climate transition zones are spatially not uniform and not linear since the mid-Holocene.
Pollen-based quantitative reconstructions of past climate variables is a standard palaeoclimatic approach. Despite knowing that the spatial extent of the calibration-set affects the reconstruction result, guidance is lacking as to how to determine a suitable spatial extent of the pollen-climate calibration-set. In this study, past mean annual precipitation (P-ann) during the Holocene (since 11.5 cal ka BP) is reconstructed repeatedly for pollen records from Qinghai Lake (36.7 degrees N, 100.5 degrees E; north-east Tibetan Plateau), Gonghai Lake (38.9 degrees N, 112.2 degrees E; north China) and Sihailongwan Lake (42.3 degrees N, 126.6 degrees E; north-east China) using calibration-sets of varying spatial extents extracted from the modern pollen dataset of China and Mongolia (2559 sampling sites and 168 pollen taxa in total). Results indicate that the spatial extent of the calibration-set has a strong impact on model performance, analogue quality and reconstruction diagnostics (absolute value, range, trend, optimum). Generally, these effects are stronger with the modern analogue technique (MAT) than with weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS). With respect to fossil spectra from northern China, the spatial extent of calibration-sets should be restricted to radii between ca. 1000 and 1500 km because small-scale calibration-sets (<800 km radius) will likely fail to include enough spatial variation in the modern pollen assemblages to reflect the temporal range shifts during the Holocene, while too broad a scale calibration-set (>1500 km radius) will include taxa with very different pollen-climate relationships. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Understanding the history and regional singularities of human impact on vegetation is key to developing strategies for sustainable ecosystem management. In this study, fossil and modern pollen datasets from China are employed to investigate temporal changes in pollen composition, analogue quality, and pollen diversity during the Holocene. Anthropogenic disturbance and vegetation's responses are also assessed. Results reveal that pollen assemblages from non-forest communities fail to provide evidence of human impact for the western part of China (annual precipitation less than 400 mm and/or elevation more than 3000 m.a.s.l.), as inferred from the stable quality of modern analogues, principal components, and diversity of species and communities throughout the Holocene. For the eastern part of China, the proportion of fossil pollen spectra with good modern analogues increases from ca. 50% to ca. 80% during the last 2 millennia, indicating an enhanced intensity of anthropogenic disturbance on vegetation. This disturbance has caused the pollen spectra to become taxonomically less diverse over space (reduced abundances of arboreal taxa and increased abundances of herbaceous taxa), highlighting a reduced south-north differentiation and divergence from past vegetation between regions in the eastern part of China. We recommend that care is taken in eastern China when basing the development of ecosystem management strategies on vegetation changes in the region during the last 2000 years, since humans have significantly disturbed the vegetation during this period.
Pollen records from Siberia are mostly absent in global or Northern Hemisphere synthesis works. Here we present a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized pollen dataset that was synthesized using 173 palynological records from Siberia and adjacent areas (northeastern Asia, 42-75 degrees N, 50-180 degrees E). Pollen data were taxonomically harmonized, i.e. the original 437 taxa were assigned to 106 combined pollen taxa. Age-depth models for all records were revised by applying a constant Bayesian age-depth modelling routine. The pollen dataset is available as count data and percentage data in a table format (taxa vs. samples), with age information for each sample. The dataset has relatively few sites covering the last glacial period between 40 and 11.5 ka (calibrated thousands of years before 1950 CE) particularly from the central and western part of the study area. In the Holocene period, the dataset has many sites from most of the area, with the exception of the central part of Siberia. Of the 173 pollen records, 81 % of pollen counts were downloaded from open databases (GPD, EPD, PANGAEA) and 10 % were contributions by the original data gatherers, while a few were digitized from publications. Most of the pollen records originate from peatlands (48 %) and lake sediments (33 %). Most of the records (83 %) have >= 3 dates, allowing the establishment of reliable chronologies. The dataset can be used for various purposes, including pollen data mapping (example maps for Larix at selected time slices are shown) as well as quantitative climate and vegetation reconstructions. The datasets for pollen counts and pollen percentages are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.898616 (Cao et al., 2019a), also including the site information, data source, original publication, dating data, and the plant functional type for each pollen taxa.
Pollen records from Siberia are mostly absent in global or Northern Hemisphere synthesis works. Here we present a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized pollen dataset that was synthesized using 173 palynological records from Siberia and adjacent areas (northeastern Asia, 42-75 degrees N, 50-180 degrees E). Pollen data were taxonomically harmonized, i.e. the original 437 taxa were assigned to 106 combined pollen taxa. Age-depth models for all records were revised by applying a constant Bayesian age-depth modelling routine. The pollen dataset is available as count data and percentage data in a table format (taxa vs. samples), with age information for each sample. The dataset has relatively few sites covering the last glacial period between 40 and 11.5 ka (calibrated thousands of years before 1950 CE) particularly from the central and western part of the study area. In the Holocene period, the dataset has many sites from most of the area, with the exception of the central part of Siberia. Of the 173 pollen records, 81 % of pollen counts were downloaded from open databases (GPD, EPD, PANGAEA) and 10 % were contributions by the original data gatherers, while a few were digitized from publications. Most of the pollen records originate from peatlands (48 %) and lake sediments (33 %). Most of the records (83 %) have >= 3 dates, allowing the establishment of reliable chronologies. The dataset can be used for various purposes, including pollen data mapping (example maps for Larix at selected time slices are shown) as well as quantitative climate and vegetation reconstructions. The datasets for pollen counts and pollen percentages are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.898616 (Cao et al., 2019a), also including the site information, data source, original publication, dating data, and the plant functional type for each pollen taxa.
A total of 271 pollen records were selected from a large collection of both raw and digitized pollen spectra from eastern continental Asia (70 degrees-135 degrees E and 18 degrees-55 degrees N). Following pollen percentage recalculations, taxonomic homogenization, and age-depth model revision, the pollen spectra were interpolated at a 500-year resolution and a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized fossil pollen dataset established with 226 pollen taxa, covering the last 22 cal lea. Of the 271 pollen records, 85% were published since 1990, with reliable chronologies and high temporal resolutions; of these, 50% have raw data with complete pollen assemblages, ensuring the quality of this dataset The pollen records available for each 500-year time slice are well distributed over all main vegetation types and climatic zones of the study area, making their pollen spectra suitable for paleovegetation and paleoclimate research. Such a dataset can be used as an example for the development of similar datasets for other regions of the world.
A modern pollen dataset from China and Mongolia (18-52 degrees N, 74-132 degrees E) is investigated for its potential use in climate reconstructions. The dataset includes 2559 samples, 229 terrestrial pollen taxa and four climatic variables - mean annual precipitation (P-ann): 35-2091 mm, mean annual temperature (T-ann): -12.1-25.8 degrees C, mean temperature in the coldest month (Mt(co).): -33.8-21.7 degrees C, and mean temperature in the warmest month (Mt(wa)): 03-29.8 degrees C. Modern pollen-climate relationships are assessed using canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), Huisman-Olff-Fresco (HOF) models, the modern analogue technique (MAT), and weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS). Results indicate that P-ann is the most important climatic determinant of pollen distribution and the most promising climate variable for reconstructions, as assessed by the coefficient of determination between observed and predicted environmental values (r(2)) and root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP). Mt(co) and Mt(wa) may be reconstructed too, but with caution. Samples from different depositional environments influence the performance of cross-validation differently, with samples from lake sediment-surfaces and moss polsters having the best fit with the lowest RMSEP. The better model performances of MAT are most probably caused by spatial autocorrelation. Accordingly, the WA-PLS models of this dataset are deemed most suitable for reconstructing past climate quantitatively because of their more reliable predictive power. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
This study investigates the spatial and temporal distributions of 14 key arboreal taxa and their driving forces during the last 22,000 calendar years before ad 1950 (kyr BP) using a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized fossil pollen dataset with a 500-year resolution from the eastern part of continental Asia. Logistic regression was used to estimate pollen abundance thresholds for vegetation occurrence (presence or dominance), based on modern pollen data and present ranges of 14 taxa in China. Our investigation reveals marked changes in spatial and temporal distributions of the major arboreal taxa. The thermophilous (Castanea, Castanopsis, Cyclobalanopsis, Fagus, Pterocarya) and eurythermal (Juglans, Quercus, Tilia, Ulmus) broadleaved tree taxa were restricted to the current tropical or subtropical areas of China during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and spread northward since c. 14.5kyr BP. Betula and conifer taxa (Abies, Picea, Pinus), in contrast, retained a wider distribution during the LGM and showed no distinct expansion direction during the Late Glacial. Since the late mid-Holocene, the abundance but not the spatial extent of most trees decreased. The changes in spatial and temporal distributions for the 14 taxa are a reflection of climate changes, in particular monsoonal moisture, and, in the late Holocene, human impact. The post-LGM expansion patterns in eastern continental China seem to be different from those reported for Europe and North America, for example, the westward spread for eurythermal broadleaved taxa.
This study investigates the spatial and temporal distributions of 14 key arboreal taxa and their driving forces during the last 22,000 calendar years before ad 1950 (kyr BP) using a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized fossil pollen dataset with a 500-year resolution from the eastern part of continental Asia. Logistic regression was used to estimate pollen abundance thresholds for vegetation occurrence (presence or dominance), based on modern pollen data and present ranges of 14 taxa in China. Our investigation reveals marked changes in spatial and temporal distributions of the major arboreal taxa. The thermophilous (Castanea, Castanopsis, Cyclobalanopsis, Fagus, Pterocarya) and eurythermal (Juglans, Quercus, Tilia, Ulmus) broadleaved tree taxa were restricted to the current tropical or subtropical areas of China during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and spread northward since c. 14.5 kyr BP. Betula and conifer taxa (Abies, Picea, Pinus), in contrast, retained a wider distribution during the LGM and showed no distinct expansion direction during the Late Glacial. Since the late mid-Holocene, the abundance but not the spatial extent of most trees decreased. The changes in spatial and temporal distributions for the 14 taxa are a reflection of climate changes, in particular monsoonal moisture, and, in the late Holocene, human impact. The post-LGM expansion patterns in eastern continental China seem to be different from those reported for Europe and North America, for example, the westward spread for eurythermal broadleaved taxa.