Relative pollen productivities of the major plant taxa of subtropical evergreen–deciduous mixed woodland in China

Abstract

Quantifying the relationship between pollen and vegetation is an essential step in the pollen-based quantitative reconstruction of past vegetation cover. In this study, we use the Extended R-Value (ERV) model and a modern dataset of pollen (collected from moss polsters) and related vegetation from 50 sites in the Daba Mountains (subtropical China) to (i) estimate the relevant source area of pollen (RSAP) of the moss samples and the relative pollen productivities (RPPs) of nine major plant taxa-characteristic of the region, and (ii) evaluate the obtained RPPs. The RSAP estimates of moss polsters vary between 225 and 610 m depending on the ERV submodels and models of pollen dispersal and deposition used. The RPP estimates are different from values published in previous studies from temperate and subtropical China. This may be explained by differences in methodology, climate and vegetation (species composition and spatial distribution), of which vegetation is probably the most important factor. The ranking of the RPP estimates for the nine taxa is Pinus > Juglandaceae > D − Quercus (deciduous Quercus) > Poaceae > Rosaceae > Cyperaceae > Anacardiaceae > Castanea > Fabaceae. We use a 'leave-one-out' cross-validation strategy and the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA) for pollen-based reconstruction of regional and local plant cover to evaluate the ERV model-based RPP estimates. Both the REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites)-based and the LOVE (LOcal Vegetation Estimates)-based plant cover using the RPP estimates are closer to the modern vegetation composition than pollen percentages, thus confirming the applicability of the ERV model and the LRA approach in subtropical China.Abbreviations. D LRA-obs , Euclidian distance between the LRAreconstructed and the observed local vegetation composition; D pol-obs , Euclidian distance between the pollen proportions and the observed local vegetation composition; D-Quercus, deciduous

Compilation of relative pollen productivity (RPP) estimates and taxonomically harmonised RPP datasets for single continents and Northern Hemisphere extratropics

“…If the data were only presented as figures, values were extracted with the help of CorelDRAW X6. The RPP values from an unpublished study by Li et al and from the studies of Ge et al (2015), He et al (2016), Wu et al (2013), and Zhang et al (2017), which are only available in Chinese, where extracted from Li et al (2018), while the study of Chen et al (2019) was extracted from Jiang et al (2020).…”

“…The RPP estimates of Matthias et al (2012, reference taxon Pinus) were recalculated based on the mean Pinus RPP provided by Räsänen et al (2007) and Abraham and Kozáková (2012). The study of Jiang et al (2020) used Quercus as the reference taxon but included a value for Poaceae, which was used as the basis for recalculation.…”

Phytolith Assemblages as a Promising Tool for Quantitative Canopy Coverage Reconstruction in Subtropical Forests, China

“…In contrast, as most arboreal phytoliths are produced in the leaves of the trees in subtropical evergreen forests, the under-representation of arboreal phytoliths to trees is not surprising ( Piperno, 1988 ; Wang and Lu, 1993 ). Future additional calibrations are needed to address the representativeness differences between arboreal and herbaceous phytoliths, as has been done in palynology (e.g., Sun et al, 2016 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ; Fang et al, 2022 ). Regardless, relative abundances of arboreal and grass phytoliths varied consistently with natural vegetation changes along the elevation gradient, suggesting that phytolith assemblages might be a useful tool for quantitative vegetation reconstruction.…”

“…Poaceae pollen is moderately representative of Poaceae (with R value close to 1, cf. Sun et al, 2016;Jiang et al, 2020), and this explains why Poaceae pollen is a relatively good indicator of vegetation composition.…”

Holocene Paleoecology in the Neotropical Savannas of Northern South America (Llanos of the Orinoquia Ecoregion, Colombia and Venezuela): What Do We Know and on What Should We Focus in the Future?

“…In tropical and sub-tropical areas, only a few attempts have been made toward quantitative land-cover reconstructions; South Africa (Duffin and Bunting, 2008), South America (Piraquive-Bermúdez, 2021), Cameroon (Gaillard et al, 2021) and sub-tropical China (Fang et al, 2019;Jiang et al, 2020). However, several paleoecological archives have been collected in Latin America (more than 1,300 fossil and 4,800 modern samples) and Africa (288 fossil sites and 1,985 modern samples), which will be essential for future quantitative studies in those regions of the world.…”