Magnitudes and patterns of large-scale permafrost ground deformation revealed by Sentinel-1 InSAR on the central Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The early evolutionary pattern and molecular adaptation mechanism of alpine Parnassius butterflies to high altitudes in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau are poorly understood up to now, due to difficulties in sampling, limited sequence data, and time calibration issues. Here, we present large-scale transcriptomic datasets of eight representative Parnassius species to reveal the phylogenetic timescale and potential genetic basis for high-altitude adaptation with multiple analytic strategies using 476 orthologous genes. Our phylogenetic results strongly supported that the subgenus Parnassius formed a well-resolved basal clade, and the subgenera Tadumia and Kailasius were closely related in the phylogenetic trees. In addition, molecular dating analyses showed that the Parnassius began to diverge at about 13.0 to 14.3 million years ago (middle Miocene), correlated with their hostplant’s spatiotemporal distributions, as well as geological and palaeoenvironmental changes of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Moreover, the accelerated evolutionary rate, candidate positively selected genes and their potentially functional changes were detected, probably contributed to the high-altitude adaptation of Parnassius species. Overall, our study provided some new insights into the spatiotemporally evolutionary pattern and high altitude adaptation of Parnassius butterflies from the extrinsic and intrinsic view, which will help to address evolution, biodiversity, and conservation questions concerning Parnassius and other butterfly species.

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Changes in vegetation composition and plant diversity with rangeland degradation in the alpine region of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The Rangeland Journal ◽

10.1071/rj14077 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 107 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Lin Tang ◽

Shikui Dong ◽

Ruth Sherman ◽

Shiliang Liu ◽

Quanru Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Diversity ◽

Large Scale ◽

Alpine Meadow ◽

Vegetation Indices ◽

Desert Ecosystem ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Vegetation Composition ◽

Rangeland Degradation ◽

Alpine Steppe ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau

The changes in vegetation composition and plant diversity of three different alpine ecosystems: alpine meadow, alpine steppe and alpine desert, impacted by different levels of degradation (healthy, lightly degraded and moderately degraded) were examined across a large-scale transect on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The alpine meadow was dominated by sedges, the alpine steppe was dominated by grasses and the alpine desert was dominated by shrubs. The alpine meadow had the highest species diversity, whereas the alpine steppe had the lowest and tended to be dominated by a few species. Forbs were the dominant and most diverse functional group in the alpine meadow and the alpine steppe, which was different from the alpine desert. The importance values of the dominant species and levels of diversity measured by various vegetation indices were only slightly different in the degraded sites as compared with the non-degraded alpine meadow and steppe, whereas the alpine desert showed large changes in the composition and diversity of the plant community in response to degradation. In conclusion, the plant composition of the alpine meadow and alpine steppe ecosystems was more stable and appeared more resistant to disturbance than that of the alpine desert ecosystem.

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Temporal Variations in the Quantity of Groundwater Flow in Nam Co Lake

Water ◽

10.3390/w10070941 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (7) ◽

pp. 941 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yan Du ◽

Zhide Huang ◽

Mowen Xie ◽

Asim Farooq ◽

Chen Chen

Keyword(s):

Groundwater Flow ◽

Large Scale ◽

Temporal Variations ◽

Water Levels ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Nam Co ◽

Lake Water Level ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau ◽

Nam Co Lake

This paper aims to calculate and analyze the spatial and temporal variations in the groundwater flow quantity in Nam Co Lake based on the water balance principle. The results show that a large amount of groundwater was gradually lost and that, groundwater loss decreased from 1.9 billion m3 to 1.5 billion m3 from the period of 1980–1984 to 1995–2009. The comparative analysis in the current study indicates that the decrease in the groundwater index has a strong linear relationship with the temperature of the ground surface on the Tibetan Plateau, with a correlation coefficient as high as 0.92. Moreover, environmental variations such as large-scale engineering construction projects and increases in water storage may have played dominant roles in the sudden changes in the water quantities of plateau lakes (e.g., Nam Co Lake) during the periods of 1990–1995 and 2000–2009. The increased water levels resulted in reduced groundwater losses, which may lead to the substantial expansion or gradual shrinkage of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau lakes over short periods of time. The results of this study provide an important reference for studying the mechanisms of lake water level changes on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau.

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Typical characteristics of large-scale landslides in the transition belt between the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Loess Plateau

Arabian Journal of Geosciences ◽

10.1007/s12517-019-4612-9 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (15) ◽

Author(s):

Bo Zhao ◽

Yunsheng Wang ◽

Ming Chen ◽

Yonghong Luo ◽

Ruifeng Liang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Loess Plateau ◽

Large Scale ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

The Loess Plateau ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau

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Map and Quantify the Ground Deformation Around Salt Lake in Hoh Xil, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Using Time-Series InSAR From 2006 to 2018

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing ◽

10.1109/jstars.2020.3031893 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 858-869

Author(s):

Zhengjia Zhang ◽

Mengmeng Wang ◽

Xiuguo Liu ◽

Chao Wang ◽

Hong Zhang

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Ground Deformation ◽

Salt Lake ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau

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Large-scale estimates of gross primary production on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau based on remote sensing data

International Journal of Digital Earth ◽

10.1080/17538947.2017.1381192 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 11 (11) ◽

pp. 1166-1183 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Minna Ma ◽

Wenping Yuan ◽

Jie Dong ◽

Fawei Zhang ◽

Wenwen Cai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Primary Production ◽

Large Scale ◽

Gross Primary Production ◽

Remote Sensing Data ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Sensing Data ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau

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Permafrost Deformation Monitoring Along the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Engineering Corridor Using InSAR Observations with Multi-Sensor SAR Datasets from 1997–2018

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s19235306 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (23) ◽

pp. 5306 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Zhengjia Zhang ◽

Mengmeng Wang ◽

Zhijie Wu ◽

Xiuguo Liu

Keyword(s):

Human Activities ◽

Ground Deformation ◽

Deformation Monitoring ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Deformation Model ◽

Permafrost Region ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Freezing And Thawing ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau ◽

Observation Period

As the highest elevation permafrost region in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) permafrost is quickly degrading due to global warming, climate change and human activities. The Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor (QTEC), located in the QTP tundra, is of growing interest due to the increased infrastructure development in the remote QTP area. The ground, including the embankment of permafrost engineering, is prone to instability, primarily due to the seasonal freezing and thawing cycles and increase in human activities. In this study, we used ERS-1 (1997–1999), ENVISAT (2004–2010) and Sentinel-1A (2015–2018) images to assess the ground deformation along QTEC using time-series InSAR. We present a piecewise deformation model including periodic deformation related to seasonal components and interannual linear subsidence trends was presented. Analysis of the ERS-1 result show ground deformation along QTEC ranged from −5 to +5 mm/year during the 1997–1999 observation period. For the ENVISAT and Sentinel-1A results, the estimated deformation rate ranged from −20 to +10 mm/year. Throughout the whole observation period, most of the QTEC appeared to be stable. Significant ground deformation was detected in three sections of the corridor in the Sentinel-1A results. An analysis of the distribution of the thaw slumping region in the Tuotuohe area reveals that ground deformation was associated with the development of thaw slumps in one of the three sections. This research indicates that the InSAR technique could be crucial for monitoring the ground deformation along QTEC.

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Inferring the Phylogeny and Divergence of Chinese Curcuma (Zingiberaceae) in the Hengduan Mountains of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau by Reduced Representation Sequencing

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12050520 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 520

Author(s):

Heng Liang ◽

Jiabin Deng ◽

Gang Gao ◽

Chunbang Ding ◽

Li Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Morphological Characteristics ◽

Principal Component ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Hengduan Mountains ◽

Genetic Traits ◽

Reduced Representation ◽

High Quality Snps ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau ◽

Reduced Representation Sequencing

Clarifying the genetic relationship and divergence among Curcuma L. (Zingiberaceae) species around the world is intractable, especially among the species located in China. In this study, Reduced Representation Sequencing (RRS), as one of the next generation sequences, has been applied to infer large scale genotyping of major Chinese Curcuma species which present little differentiation of morphological characteristics and genetic traits. The 1295 high-quality SNPs (reduced-filtered SNPs) were chosen from 997,988 SNPs of which were detected from the cleaned 437,061 loci by RRS to investigate the phylogeny and divergence among eight major Curcuma species locate in the Hengduan Mountains of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) in China. The results showed that all the population individuals were clustered together within species, and species were obviously separated; the clustering results were recovered in PCA (Principal Component Analysis); the phylogeny was (((((C. Phaeocaulis, C. yunnanensis), C. kwangsiensis), (C. amarissima, C. sichuanensis)), C. longa), (C. wenyujin, C. aromatica)); Curcuma in China originated around ~7.45 Mya (Million years ago) in the Miocene, and interspecific divergence appeared at ca. 4–2 Mya, which might be sped up rapidly along with the third intense uplift of QTP.

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