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Palynological evidence for the temporal stability of the plant community in the Yellow River Source Area over the last 7,400 years

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Abstract

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.

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Data availability

The pollen dataset for Xingxinghai Lake is currently stored in the National Tibetan Plateau/Third Pole Environment Data Center (TPDC) and available at: https://doi.org/10.11888/Paleoenv.tpdc.271828.

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Acknowledgements

The XXH sediment core was collected under Ulrike Herzschuh’s leadership and funding by Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. This research was also supported by the Basic Science Center for Tibetan Plateau Earth System (BSCTPES, NSFC project No. 41988101), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42071107 and 41877459). Cathy Jenks provided help with language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Fang Tian, Wen Qin & Ran Zhang

  2. Yongding Branch of High School Attached To Capital Normal University, Beijing, 102308, China

    Ran Zhang

  3. Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Ulrike Herzschuh

  4. Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, 14476, Potsdam, Germany

    Ulrike Herzschuh

  5. Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, 14476, Potsdam, Germany

    Ulrike Herzschuh

  6. College of Chemistry and Life Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, China

    Jian Ni

  7. School of Earth Sciences & Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources in Western China, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Chengjun Zhang

  8. Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, 102, Iceland

    Steffen Mischke

  9. Alpine Paleoecology and Human Adaptation Group (ALPHA), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Resources and Environment (TPESRE), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Xianyong Cao

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  1. Fang Tian
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Tian, F., Qin, W., Zhang, R. et al. Palynological evidence for the temporal stability of the plant community in the Yellow River Source Area over the last 7,400 years. Veget Hist Archaeobot 31, 549–558 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-022-00870-5

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