Early to mid-Holocene vegetation history, regional climate variability and human activity of the Ningshao Coastal Plain, eastern China: New evidence from pollen, freshwater algae and dinoflagellate cysts

2019 ◽  
Vol 528 ◽  
pp. 88-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuhong Ouyang ◽  
Xiudong Hao ◽  
Libo Zheng ◽  
Bin Zhuo ◽  
Yunlong Liu
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhili Wang ◽  
Lei Lin ◽  
Yangyang Xu ◽  
Huizheng Che ◽  
Xiaoye Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractAnthropogenic aerosol (AA) forcing has been shown as a critical driver of climate change over Asia since the mid-20th century. Here we show that almost all Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models fail to capture the observed dipole pattern of aerosol optical depth (AOD) trends over Asia during 2006–2014, last decade of CMIP6 historical simulation, due to an opposite trend over eastern China compared with observations. The incorrect AOD trend over China is attributed to problematic AA emissions adopted by CMIP6. There are obvious differences in simulated regional aerosol radiative forcing and temperature responses over Asia when using two different emissions inventories (one adopted by CMIP6; the other from Peking university, a more trustworthy inventory) to driving a global aerosol-climate model separately. We further show that some widely adopted CMIP6 pathways (after 2015) also significantly underestimate the more recent decline in AA emissions over China. These flaws may bring about errors to the CMIP6-based regional climate attribution over Asia for the last two decades and projection for the next few decades, previously anticipated to inform a wide range of impact analysis.


Author(s):  
Elena García‐Bustamante ◽  
J. Fidel Fidel González‐Rouco ◽  
Elena García‐Lozano ◽  
Fernando Martinez‐Peña ◽  
Jorge Navarro

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maris Klavins ◽  
Valery Rodinov

The study of changes in river discharge is important for regional climate variability characterization and for development of an efficient water resource management system. The hydrological regime of rivers and their long-term changes in Latvia were investigated. Four major types of river hydrological regimes, which depend on climatic and physicogeographic factors, were characterized. These factors are linked to the changes observed in river discharge. Periodic oscillations of discharge, and low- and high-water flow years are common for the major rivers in Latvia. A main frequency of river discharge regime changes of about 20 and 13 years was estimated for the studied rivers. A significant impact of climate variability on the river discharge regime has been found.


The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110032
Author(s):  
Halinka Di Lorenzo ◽  
Pietro Aucelli ◽  
Giuseppe Corrado ◽  
Mario De Iorio ◽  
Marcello Schiattarella ◽  
...  

The Garigliano alluvial-coastal plain, at the Latium-Campania border (Italy), witnessed a long-lasting history of human-environment interactions, as demonstrated by the rich archaeological knowledge. With the aim of reconstructing the evolution of the landscape and its interaction with human activity during the last millennia, new pollen results from the coastal sector of the Garigliano Plain were compared with the available pollen data from other nearby sites. The use of pollen data from both the coastal and marine environment allowed integrating the local vegetation dynamics within a wider regional context spanning the last 8000 years. The new pollen data presented in this study derive from the analysis of a core, drilled in the coastal sector, which intercepted the lagoon-marshy environments that occurred in the plain as a response to the Holocene transgression and subsequent coastal progradation. Three radiocarbon ages indicate that the chronology of the analyzed core interval ranges from c. 7200 to c. 2000 cal yr BP. The whole data indicate that a dense forest cover characterized the landscape all along the Prehistoric period, when a few signs of human activity are recorded in the spectra, such as cereal crops, pasture activity and fires. The main environmental changes, forced by natural processes (coastal progradation) but probably enhanced by reclamation works, started from the Graeco-Roman period and led to the reduction of swampy areas that favoured the colonisation of the outer plain.


Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongjian Chen ◽  
Jialiang Kuang ◽  
Pandeng Wang ◽  
Wensheng Shu ◽  
Albert Barberán

We are living in a new epoch—the Anthropocene, in which human activity is reshaping global biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. Increasing efforts are being made toward a better understanding of the associations between human activity and the geographic patterns in plant and animal communities. However, similar efforts are rarely applied to microbial communities. Here, we collected 472 forest soil samples across eastern China, and the bacterial and fungal communities in those samples were determined by high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer region, respectively. By compiling human impact variables as well as climate and soil variables, our goal was to elucidate the association between microbial richness and human activity when climate and soil variables are taken into account. We found that soil microbial richness was associated with human activity. Specifically, human population density was positively associated with the richness of bacteria, nitrifying bacteria and fungal plant pathogens, but it was negatively associated with the richness of cellulolytic bacteria and ectomycorrhizal fungi. Together, these results suggest that the associations between geographic variations of soil microbial richness and human activity still persist when climate and soil variables are taken into account and that these associations vary among different microbial taxonomic and functional groups.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Barrett ◽  
Nathan P. Nibbelink ◽  
John C. Maerz

Abstract Climate change is driving shifts in the distribution of plants and animals, and prioritizing management actions for such shifts is a necessary but technically difficult challenge. We worked with state agencies in the southeastern United States to identify high-priority amphibian species, to model the vulnerabilities of those species to regional climate change, and to identify long-term climatic refugia within the context of existing conservation lands. Directly interfacing with state natural resource experts ensured that 1) species prioritization schemes extend beyond political boundaries and 2) our models resulted in conservation-relevant applications. We used a correlative model to project midcentury distributions of suitable climate for priority species and to evaluate each species' vulnerability to climate change. Using spatially explicit projected climate distributions, we ranked existing protected areas relative to their ability to provide climatic refugia for priority species in 2050. We identified 21 species as regional high-priority species. Fifteen of the 21 species are forecast to lose more than 85% of their climatically suitable habitat. Regions in the Appalachian Mountains, the Florida Panhandle, and the north-central region of Alabama are projected to lose the most climatic habitat for priority amphibian species. We identified many existing protected areas as midcentury climatic refugia in the Appalachians; however, our projections indicated refugia in the Southeast Coastal Plain to be exceedingly scarce. Although the topographic relief present in the Appalachians appears to provide future conservation opportunities via climatic refugia, the Coastal Plain affords fewer such opportunities and conservation of amphibians in that region is likely to be more challenging. The approach outlined here could be applied across a broad range of taxa and regions.


2003 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 161-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.M. Fyfe ◽  
A.G. Brown ◽  
B.J. Coles

This paper presents the results of the first investigation of vegetation change and human activity from a river valley west of the Somerset Levels. The record is contrasted with the pollen and archaeological record from south-west uplands (Dartmoor and Exmoor) and the Somerset Levels. Vegetation change and archaeological evidence are shown to be generally consistent, with evidence from the middle valley of Mesolithic vegetation disturbance (with nearby lithics), Neolithic clearance of terraces and slopes in the lower valley and Neolithic–Bronze Age ceremonial and domestic activity, but in the upper reach the maintenance of wooded valley floor conditions probably with management until historic times. The valley floor and surrounding slope vegetation history is found to be significantly different to that of the uplands with lime and elm being significant components of the prehistoric woodland record. The data suggest that lime is restricted to terraces and lowlands below 200 m OD throughout the prehistoric period. The pollen data from the valley suggest the lowlands had a rich and mixed ecology providing a wide range of resources and that, despite less visible archaeological remains, human activity is manifest through palynological evidence from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. The largest expanse of valley-floor terrace, the Nether Exe Basin, which was at least partially deforested in the early Neolithic contains a rich assemblage of Neolithic–Bronze Age ceremonial, funerary and domestic archaeology associated with an early and clear palynological record of woodland clearance, arable and pastoral activity.


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