Three-and-a-half million years of Tibetan Plateau vegetation dynamics in response to climate change

doi:10.1038/s41559-025-02743-2

IVPP-IR

	Three-and-a-half million years of Tibetan Plateau vegetation dynamics in response to climate change
	Zhao, Yan 1,2; Qin, Feng 1; Cui, Qiaoyu 1; Li, Quan 1; Cui, Yifan 1; Birks, H. John B.3,4,5; Liang, Chen 1,6; Zhao, Wenwei 7; Li, Huan 7; Ren, Weihe 1,8; Deng, Chenglong 2,9; Ge, Junyi 10; Kong, Yanfen 1; Liu, Yaoliang 1,11; Zhang, Zhiyong 1; Zhang, Jiawu 12; Cai, Maotang 1,13; Wei, Haicheng 14; Qiu, Hongyi 1; Xu, Haitao 1; Yang, Hanfei 1,15; Chen, Chunzhu 7; Piao, Shilong 16; Guo, Zhengtang 2,9
	2025-07-01
发表期刊	NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
ISSN	2397-334X
卷号	9 期号:7 页码:28
通讯作者	Zhao, Yan(zhaoyan@igsnrr.ac.cn)
摘要	The Tibetan Plateau supports the largest alpine meadow ecosystem globally. It is considered extremely vulnerable to global warming. Knowledge of past vegetation dynamics under similarly warm climates could shed insights into where the tipping point for regime shifts may lie. We report a continuous multicentennial-resolved pollen record for the last 3.5 Myr from a lake sediment core retrieved from the Zoige Basin (similar to 3,350-3,450 m above sea level) on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. It reveals a detailed picture of the vegetation dynamics across several timescales using the approaches of biomization, numerical analysis, statistical modelling and vegetation simulations. These lines of evidence show that vegetation underwent transformation from stable forest in the mid-late Pliocene Period (3.5-2.73 million years ago (Ma)) to codominance of forest and steppe in the early Quaternary Period (2.73-1.54 Ma) and to a meadow-dominated ecosystem after similar to 1.54 Ma, along with glacial-interglacial and millennial-scale grassland-forest shifts. These vegetational changes were largely controlled by temperature change. A global warming of similar to 2-3 degrees C is the most important threshold for the forest expansion and meadow resilience loss on the Tibetan Plateau. By analogy to the past, we suggest that, without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the current Tibetan Plateau meadow is at risk of major transformation.
DOI	10.1038/s41559-025-02743-2
关键词[WOS]	EARTH SYSTEM MODEL ; POLLEN RECORDS ; TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS ; PALYNOLOGICAL RICHNESS ; DIVERSITY ; VARIABILITY ; HOLOCENE ; REPRESENTATION ; TEMPERATURE ; LIMITATIONS
收录类别	SCI
语种	英语
资助项目	National Key Research and Development Program of China[2022YFF0801501] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[42488201]
项目资助者	National Key Research and Development Program of China ; National Natural Science Foundation of China
WOS研究方向	Environmental Sciences & Ecology ; Evolutionary Biology
WOS类目	Ecology ; Evolutionary Biology
WOS记录号	WOS:001508199800001
出版者	NATURE PORTFOLIO
引用统计
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.205/handle/311034/24626
专题	中国科学院古脊椎动物与古人类研究所
通讯作者	Zhao, Yan
作者单位	1.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geog Sci & Nat Resources Res, Key Lab Land Surface Pattern & Simulat, Beijing, Peoples R China 2.Univ Chinese Acad Sci, Beijing, Peoples R China 3.Univ Bergen, Dept Biol Sci, Bergen, Norway 4.Univ Bergen, Bjerknes Ctr Climate Res, Bergen, Norway 5.UCL, Environm Change Res Ctr, Dept Geog, London, England 6.Hebei GEO Univ, Sch Land Sci & Space Planning, Shijiazhuang, Peoples R China 7.Nantong Univ, Sch Geog Sci, Nantong, Peoples R China 8.Hengyang Normal Univ, Coll Geog & Tourism, Hengyang, Peoples R China 9.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geol & Geophys, Key Lab Cenozo Geol & Environm, Beijing, Peoples R China 10.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Vertebrate Paleontol & Paleoanthropol, Key Lab Vertebrate Evolut & Human Origins, Beijing, Peoples R China 11.Hebei Normal Univ Sci & Technol, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, Peoples R China 12.Lanzhou Univ, Coll Earth & Environm Sci, Lanzhou, Peoples R China 13.Chinese Acad Geol Sci, Inst Geomech, Beijing, Peoples R China 14.Chinese Acad Sci, Qinghai Inst Salt Lakes, Xining, Peoples R China 15.Guangzhou Univ, Sch Geog & Remote Sensing, Guangzhou, Peoples R China 16.Peking Univ, Inst Carbon Neutral, Coll Urban & Environm Sci, Key Lab Earth Surface Proc,Minist Educ, Beijing, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Zhao, Yan,Qin, Feng,Cui, Qiaoyu,et al. Three-and-a-half million years of Tibetan Plateau vegetation dynamics in response to climate change[J]. NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION,2025,9(7):28.
APA	Zhao, Yan.,Qin, Feng.,Cui, Qiaoyu.,Li, Quan.,Cui, Yifan.,...&Guo, Zhengtang.(2025).Three-and-a-half million years of Tibetan Plateau vegetation dynamics in response to climate change.NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION,9(7),28.
MLA	Zhao, Yan,et al."Three-and-a-half million years of Tibetan Plateau vegetation dynamics in response to climate change".NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION 9.7(2025):28.