Quantitative relationship between modern pollen assemblage and altitudinal vegetation belt is crucial for the reconstruction of paleovegetation in the mountain regions.Modern pollen analysis on 70 topsoil samples was conducted across an altitudinal transect(1100-4500 m) on the eastern slope of Gongga Mountain in the eastern Tibetan Plateau with an elevation interval of 50 m.Distributions of major pollen types along the transect indicated a weak correlation between Pinus pollen and the elevation.Distributions of Picea and Abies pollen(percentage sum of 2%-8%) could fairly indicate the elevation range of 2700-3700 m,as well as the subalpine dark coniferous forest and the timberline in the region.High percentage intervals of alpine types of Ericaceae,Cupressaceae and Cyperaceae were correlated to the high-elevation regions(3700-4500 m) dominated by alpine shrub meadow and alpine meadow.Seven altitudinal vegetation belts on the eastern slope of Gongga Mountain were well defined by discriminant analysis conducted on the modern pollen assemblages,as reflected by high values of probability of modern analog.Most of the modern pollen assemblages(88.5%) were typical for the vegetation types at their sampling locations.Thus,the relationship between the modern pollen assemblages and vegetation across the altitudinal transect based on discriminant analysis can be applied to the quantitative reconstruction of paleovegetation changes in the mountain regions of the eastern Tibetan Plateau.
Peat sediments and peatland evolution process offer abundant clues into the history of vegetation and climate changes.In order to reconstruct Holocene peatland, vegetation and climate changes on eastern Tibetan Plateau, we conducted analyses of fossil pollen, loss-on-ignition, and carbon accumulation rate on one peat core from Zoige Basin. Our results show local peatland initiated at 10.3 ka, thrived in the early-mid Holocene, and then began to degrade. Throughout the Holocene, Zoige Basin was dominated by alpine meadow. Coniferous forest on montane regions expanded for several times during 10.5–4.6ka, and then dramatically retreated. Results of peatland property, principal component analysis on fossil pollen suggested the climate maintained warm/wet during 10–5.5 ka, and became relatively cold/dry in the late Holocene. Rapid degradation of peatland, retreat of coniferous forest and climatic drought/cooling occurred at 10.2–10, 9.7–9.5, 8.7–8.5, 7.7–7.4, 6.4–6, 5.5–5.2,4.8–4.5, 4–3.6, 3.1–2.7, 1.4–1.2 and 0.8–0.6 ka. The long-term variations of Holocene climate and vegetation on eastern Tibetan Plateau could be attributed to changes in insolation-driven temperature and Asian Summer Monsoon intensity, while those rapid centennial changes were probably triggered by abrupt monsoon failures and temperature anomalies in the high northern latitudes.
