Late Holocene vegetation and climate changes in the Great Hinggan Mountains, northeast China

Han, Dongxue; Gao, Chuanyu; Yu, Zicheng; Yu, Xiaofei; Li, Yunhui; Cong, Jinxin; Wang, Guoping

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2019.11.017

Cited by 24 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The expansion of secondary forest and increasing fire activity found in this study are comparable to results from the Amur Basin in eastern Russia which suggested anthropogenic activity drove secondary pine forest expansion and fire activity in the last 250 years (Yu, Zheng, Kershaw, Skrypnikova, & Huang, 2014). A peat record from the northern region of the GHM also found secondary forest expansion occurred in the last 300 years (Han et al, 2019). While these studies do not directly date the top of the sedimentary archives to accurately identify the timing of secondary forest expansion, the regional trend highlights the impact of human occupation and land‐use across the sensitive mountain region of Northeastern China.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Paleoenvironmental studies in the GHM are limited, with the fossil pollen record from Lake Moon showing past vegetation distribution and composition were primarily driven by climate change during the Holocene (Wu & Liu, 2012; Wu et al, 2016; Wu et al, 2019). However, a peat record from the northern region of the GHM suggests that secondary forest expansion in the late‐Holocene may have been caused by human activities (Han et al, 2019). Further studies are needed to identify the impacts of anthropogenic‐driven changes in this sensitive mountain region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental change and human land‐use over the past 200 years in the Great Hinggan Mountains, Northeastern China

et al. 2020

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Mountain ecosystems are sensitive to environmental changes and are affected by direct and indirect anthropogenic activities. This study sought to understand the impacts of human occupation, environmental and climate change on the Great Hinggan Mountains (GHM) in Northeastern China. The last 200 years of environmental changes are reconstructed by analyzing sediment cores from five small mountain lakes. Cores were dated using 210Pb and 137Cs radioisotopes, microscopic charcoal identified regional fire activity and fossil pollen analysis reconstructed temporal and spatial changes in vegetation. Peaks in 137Cs, 226Ra and microscopic charcoal flux were found to follow similar trends between sites. The radioisotope records reflect redistribution processes, such as erosion and fire events, which overwhelm the atmospheric fallout signal in the GHM. Microscopic charcoal increased from 1950 CE and peaked at all sites after 2000 CE suggesting that current fire management, coupled with a warmer climate due to global warming, may be leading to more wildfire events in the region. Pinus, Quercus and Betula declined at all sites as human occupation occurred in the early 1900s. Initially, open forest and grassland expanded in response to overexploitation of forests, followed by arboreal pollen reaching maximum values after 2000 CE. This study concludes that the present‐day mixed coniferous broad‐leaved forest dominating the southern region of the GHM is a product of changing fire activity, excessive logging and, more recently, forestry management and vegetation regeneration. Results suggest further management strategies are needed to address land degradation and wildfire events in mountain regions of Northeastern China.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental change and human land‐use over the past 200 years in the Great Hinggan Mountains, Northeastern China

et al. 2020

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“…Soil pH is weakly acidic with rich organic matter content, which is conducive to the growth of vegetation. The vegetation in the area is mainly oak and willow, with a low cover of shrub willow, elm and arti cial pine, and larch [27][28] .…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights into the Phaeozem Formation from the Fluvial Parent Material

Guanxin

Yan

Sun

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The formation and evolution of phaeozems have always been an area of interest because the phaeozems play an important role in two regions dubbed as "European Bread Basket" and "Northeast China Storehouse." As the phaeozems contain a large proportion of parent materials and are sensitive to human intervention, their formation and evolution have been restricted. Due to the homogeneity of loess parent material, there has been extensive research on the formation of surface phaeozems from the loess parent material. However, phaeozems developed from key fluvial parent material have so far received little attention. Therefore, key information on the formation of phaeozems is missing. In this context, this study applies geochemical tests to determine rare earth elements and major and trace elements in the deep phaeozem layer from the Arongqi borehole in the phaeozems of Northeastern China. Further, the sporopollen fossil tests were conducted in the HT-1-4-2 borehole, and the distribution characteristics of the deep phaeozem layer were analyzed using geostatistics. The results from this study indicate that rare earth data from phaeozems in Arongqi's deep layer shows a comparatively high total concentration of rare earth elements, with a mean value of 141.45 mg.kg− 1. The chondrite normalization curve demonstrates that the distribution of light rare earth elements shows a positive slope. Further, Eu shows a trend with a slight negative anomaly, while Ce shows a trend with an evident negative anomaly. Ce > -0.1 (mean value 3.9) indicates a reducing environment with hypoxia. The distribution of rare earth elements indicates that phaeozems contain transportable parent materials with trace elements Th/U > 2 (mean value 2.88), Sr/Ba < 0.6 (mean value 0.38), 0 < Rb/Sr < 0.6 (mean value 0.26), Sr /Cu > 10 (mean value 30.98), and climate index at mean value of 0.23. The presence of trace elements indicated freshwater habitats and a dry-hot to semi-dry-hot climate. The sporopollen fossils are mainly comprised of shrubs, coniferous forests, and terrestrial herbs. The presence of Ephedra and Polygonaceae indicates that the environment was hot and arid at that time. Moreover, the presence of several ferns observed in the vertical profile indicates an intermittent warm and humid climate between droughts. Thus, it can be concluded that the deep phaeozems in Arongqi developed in the floodplains of Arun River under the dry-hot-semi-dry-hot climatic conditions.

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“…The average temperature in July is about 18 C, summer is short, wet, and hot between June and August. The mean annual precipitation (Pann) amounts to 452 mm; more than 80% of the rainfall occurs between May and September (Fick & Hijmans, 2017;Han et al, 2019).…”

Section: Study Area and Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tuqiang profile (TQ1, 52.94 N, 122.85 E, altitude 474 m above sea level) in the Greater Khingan Mountains was collected in November 2016 (Figure 1b,c). Dominant species in Tuqiang peatland are consisted of shrubs (Betula fruticosa, Ledum palustre, Vaccinium uliginosum, Chamaedaphne calyculata, Salix myrtilloide), sedges (Eriophorum vaginatum), and moss (Sphagnum magellanicum, Sphagnum capillifolium), surrounded by Larix gmelinii, Betula platyphylla forests on all sides, and a few trees of the same species grow in the site (Han et al, 2019). The total length of TQ1 profile was 40 cm, and the profile can be subdivided into three sections: peat with roots (0-10 cm), light brown peat (11-25 cm), and dark brown peat (26-40 cm).…”

Section: Study Area and Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic and climatic‐driven peatland degradation during the past 150 years in the Greater Khingan Mountains, NE China

et al. 2021

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Relationships between modern pollen, climate, and human activities are important for improving the explanation of fossil records. To better understand anthropogenic and climatic impact on peatland vegetation and environment, we assessed the impact of the human influence index (HII) on modern pollen assemblages from 61 surface soil samples (different land-use types) in the Greater Khingan Mountains by using detrended correspondence analysis and redundancy analysis. Based on the palynological analysis, 210 Pb age-depth model, and weighted averaging partial least squares, we reconstructed HII values of Tuqiang peatland in the Greater Khingan Mountains during the last 150 years. The reconstructed HII values demonstrated that the intensity of human activities increased gradually before 1900 AD, when the population of Heilongjiang Province was less and its native inhabitants continued to hunt and gather. During the period of 1900-1950 AD, human influence intensity increased sharply and reached peak values. Wars and placer gold mining caused large numbers of people immigrated north to Heilongjiang Province, rapid population growth strengthened the human impact intensity. In addition, invaders exploited the forest resources without limit. Widescale deforestation and land reclamation destroyed vegetation landscape and reduced forest coverage seriously, which led to soil erosion and land degradation. With the foundation of new China (1949 AD), the implementation of forest protection policies clearly reduced the human disturbance intensity.

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Late Holocene vegetation and climate changes in the Great Hinggan Mountains, northeast China

Cited by 24 publications

References 43 publications

Environmental change and human land‐use over the past 200 years in the Great Hinggan Mountains, Northeastern China

Environmental change and human land‐use over the past 200 years in the Great Hinggan Mountains, Northeastern China

Insights into the Phaeozem Formation from the Fluvial Parent Material

Anthropogenic and climatic‐driven peatland degradation during the past 150 years in the Greater Khingan Mountains, NE China

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