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Recent ecological responses to climate variability and human impacts in the Nianbaoyeze Mountains (eastern Tibetan Plateau) inferred from pollen, diatom and tree-ring data

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Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau is a region that is highly sensitive to recent global warming, but the complexity and heterogeneity of its mountainous landscape can result in variable responses. In addition, the scarcity and brevity of regional instrumental and palaeoecological records still hamper our understanding of past and present patterns of environmental change. To investigate how the remote, high-alpine environments of the Nianbaoyeze Mountains, eastern Tibetan Plateau, are affected by climate change and human activity over the last ~600 years, we compared regional tree-ring studies with pollen and diatom remains archived in the dated sediments of Dongerwuka Lake (33.22°N, 101.12°E, 4,307 m a.s.l.). In agreement with previous studies from the eastern Tibetan Plateau, a strong coherence between our two juniper-based tree-ring chronologies from the Nianbaoyeze and the Anemaqin Mountains was observed, with pronounced cyclical variations in summer temperature reconstructions. A positive directional trend to warmer summer temperatures in the most recent decades, was, however, not observed in the tree-ring record. Likewise, our pollen and diatom spectra showed minimal change over the investigated time period. Although modest, the most notable change in the diatom relative abundances was a subtle decrease in the dominant planktonic Cyclotella ocellata and a concurrent increase in small, benthic fragilarioid taxa in the ~1820s, suggesting higher ecosystem variability. The pollen record subtly indicates three periods of increased cattle grazing activity (~1400–1480 AD, ~1630–1760 AD, after 1850 AD), but shows generally no significant vegetation changes during past ~600 years. The minimal changes observed in the tree-ring, diatom and pollen records are consistent with the presence of localised cooling centres that are evident in instrumental and tree-ring data within the southeastern and eastern Tibetan Plateau. Given the minor changes in regional temperature records, our complacent palaeoecological profiles suggest that climatically induced ecological thresholds have not yet been crossed in the Nianbaoyeze Mountains region.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Patrick Rioual and an anonymous reviewer whose insightful comments strengthened our manuscript. The editorial help by Mark Brenner is very much appreciated. We also thank Huaming Shang for his help during fieldwork. Funding was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Telegrafenberg A 43, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Juliane Wischnewski & Ulrike Herzschuh

  2. Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24, 14476, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Ulrike Herzschuh & Steffen Mischke

  3. Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory, Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    Kathleen M. Rühland & John P. Smol

  4. Institute of Geography, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Kochstr. 4/4, 91054, Erlangen, Germany

    Achim Bräuning

  5. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, China

    Lily Wang

  6. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, Beijing, China

    Lily Wang

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  1. Juliane Wischnewski
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Correspondence to Juliane Wischnewski.

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ESM Fig. 1

(a) Comparison of the Anemaqin (black curve) and Nianbaoyeze (grey curve) tree-ring chronologies. Smoothed lines indicate long-term growth variations generated by smoothing the original data with an 11-year Fast Fourier Filter (thin black line: Nianbaoyeze, bold black line: Anemaqin); (b) expressed population signal (EPS) of the Anemaqin chronology. The threshold of 0.85, above which a chronology is regarded as reliable, is indicated by the horizontal dashed line (TIFF 25511 kb)

ESM Fig. 2

Correlation function between the Anemaqin regional ring-width chronology and regional monthly values of temperature (grey shaded) and precipitation (hatched area). Asterisks indicate correlations significant at p < 0.05 (PNG 68 kb)

ESM Fig. 3

Fallout radionuclides in the Dongerwuka Lake sediment core showing (a) total and supported 210Pb, (b) unsupported 210Pb, (c) 137Cs and 241Am concentrations versus depth (PNG 92 kb)

ESM Fig. 4

Pollen diagram of lake surface sediment samples from the Nianbaoyeze Mountains, after Herzschuh et al. (2010) (PNG 131 kb)

ESM Fig. 5

Results of Principal Component Analysis (PCA), showing pollen taxa with > 0.5% abundance in at least three samples. To ease visibility, species are displayed as text symbols only (but treated as vectors, as appropriate for linear methods) (TIFF 9064 kb)

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Wischnewski, J., Herzschuh, U., Rühland, K.M. et al. Recent ecological responses to climate variability and human impacts in the Nianbaoyeze Mountains (eastern Tibetan Plateau) inferred from pollen, diatom and tree-ring data. J Paleolimnol 51, 287–302 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-013-9747-1

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