Anthropogenic impacts on Late Holocene land-cover change and floristic biodiversity loss in tropical southeastern Asia

Zheng, Zhuo; Ma, Ting; Roberts, Patrick; Li, Zhen; Yue, Yuanfu; Peng, Huanhuan; Huang, Kangyou; Han, Ziyun; Wan, Qiong; Zhang, Yaze; Zhang, Xiao; Zheng, Yu; Saito, Yoshiki

doi:10.1073/pnas.2022210118

Cited by 75 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Instead, the main driver of regional vegetation change at the mid-late Holocene transition in eastern China may be attributed to climatic deterioration (Innes et al, 2014). In general, the effects of human disturbance on vegetation at local scales intensified gradually from archaeological to intermediate sites since the middle Holocene, and became an increasingly important factor in the vegetation of natural sites at regional scales until the last 3,000 years (Liu and Qiu, 1994;Zheng et al, 2021), which coincided with a noticeable increase in the number of archaeological sites after 3,500 cal a BP in southern China (Hosner et al, 2016).…”

Section: Timing and Extent Of Deforestation Induced By Human Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Interaction Between Deforestation and Rice Cultivation During the Holocene in the Lower Yangtze River, China

Lü

Sun

et al. 2022

Front. Earth Sci.

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Human activity has transformed the Earth’s landscapes pervasively for thousands of years, and the most important anthropogenic alteration was the clearing of forests and the establishment of agriculture. As a center of rice domestication and early population growth, the lower Yangtze River has been extensively transformed in the Holocene. However, the timing, extent, and process of deforestation and its relationship with the intensification of rice cultivation remain controversial. Here, four representative archaeological sites ranging from 8,100 to 4,300 cal a BP, that is, Jingtoushan, Hemudu, Yushan, and Xiawangdu sites, were selected for detailed palynological analysis, and evidence of anthropogenic deforestation and subsistence strategy were also synthesized to investigate dynamic human–forest interaction. Although natural vegetation had already been altered at the Jingtoushan site around 8,000 cal a BP, it was more likely to be the management of acorns by limiting burning to open habitats and increasing yield. As the subsistence shifted from acorn exploitation toward rice cultivation after 6,000 cal a BP, real deforestation for agriculture may occur at the Yushan and Xiawangdu sites due to conflict on labor input and land use. However, these deforestations were just confined to the archaeological sites at local scale, and no consistent vegetation change occurred at regional scales induced by human activities until the last 3,000 years.

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Section: Timing and Extent Of Deforestation Induced By Human Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Interaction Between Deforestation and Rice Cultivation During the Holocene in the Lower Yangtze River, China

Lü

Sun

et al. 2022

Front. Earth Sci.

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“…Taxonomic harmonization is required for multi-site synthesis studies (Fyfe et al, 2009;Trondman et al, 2015;Marsicek et al, 2018;Herzschuh et al, 2019;Routson et al, 2019;Mottl et al, 2021;Zheng et al, 2021;Githumbi et al, 2022). This is particularly true when numerical approaches are applied that measure the compositional dissimilarity between pollen spectra; for example, between fossil and modern sites for climate reconstructions using the modern analogue technique or regression methods, or among fos-sil records for beta-diversity studies (Birks et al, 2012).…”

Section: Quality Of the Legacypollen 10 Datasetmentioning

confidence: 99%

LegacyPollen 1.0: a taxonomically harmonized global late Quaternary pollen dataset of 2831 records with standardized chronologies

Herzschuh

Böhmer

et al. 2022

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. 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.

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“…Human activities are reflected by decreasing arboreal taxa abundances and increasing herbaceous taxa abundances (including planted Poaceae). Such fossil pollen evidence for human impact has been found for north‐central China (e.g., Cao et al, 2010; Huang, Ren, et al, 2021; Xu et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2010), east China (Wu et al, 2008), and south China (Xiao et al, 2020; Yang, Zheng, et al, 2012; Yue et al, 2015; Zhao et al, 2017; Zheng et al, 2021). In addition, stable climatic conditions (relative to the entire Holocene), at both global and regional scales during the last 2 ka, support our argument that enhanced human impact (Li et al, 2009) is the main reason for the pollen data deviation since ca.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our evidence is obtained from a series of numerical analyses based on regional or even subcontinental pollen datasets and comparisons with global and regional independent climate records and archeological data. However, our argument would benefit from more evidence at local scales, for instance, by investigating human impacts for single pollen records alongside local independent climate records and archeological data, which could provide more detailed evidence of human impacts on vegetation (e.g., the tropical south‐east China; Zheng et al, 2021). In addition, the available pollen records included in our analyses reduce notably after ca.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human activities have reduced plant diversity in eastern China over the last two millennia

Cao

Tian

Herzschuh

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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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.

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Anthropogenic impacts on Late Holocene land-cover change and floristic biodiversity loss in tropical southeastern Asia

Cited by 75 publications

References 53 publications

Dynamic Interaction Between Deforestation and Rice Cultivation During the Holocene in the Lower Yangtze River, China

Dynamic Interaction Between Deforestation and Rice Cultivation During the Holocene in the Lower Yangtze River, China

LegacyPollen 1.0: a taxonomically harmonized global late Quaternary pollen dataset of 2831 records with standardized chronologies

Human activities have reduced plant diversity in eastern China over the last two millennia

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