State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710061, China.
School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.
Environ Monit Assess. 2022 Dec 30;195(1):248. doi: 10.1007/s10661-022-10851-w.
Biodiversity has increasingly come under threat from human activity everywhere on Earth. China, with over 33,000 species of vascular plants, is a megadiverse region, in part because of its diversity in topography and climates. One of its most extensive biomes is broadleaved evergreen/warm mixed forest which dominates eastern Asia and Central China. There is some debate about how glacial/interglacial cycles across the Quaternary had an impact on this biome. There were certainly broad scale changes in distribution of many key species. Here, we examine the four palaeoecological records from Central China that contain both LGM and Mid-Holocene vegetation records and consider the degree of biodiversity in Central China with the aim of developing a broad overview of the history on plants in the region. It is clear that in the mountainous regions of Central China, many taxa survived the LGM in situ, showing that there was enough stable habitat to support key species. Some mountainous areas have high degrees of endemism which suggests that fragmentation of populations across glacial/interglacial cycles may have been an important component in favoring speciation. The consideration of past records and modern species distributions have significance in selecting conservation areas.
生物多样性在全球范围内受到人类活动的威胁日益加剧。中国拥有超过 33000 种维管植物，是一个生物多样性丰富的地区，部分原因是其地形和气候的多样性。其最广泛的生物群落之一是阔叶常绿/暖温带混合林，它主宰着东亚和中国中部。关于第四纪的冰期/间冰期循环对这一生物群落有何影响，存在一些争议。许多关键物种的分布肯定发生了广泛的变化。在这里，我们研究了来自中国中部的四个古生态学记录，其中包含 LGM 和中全新世的植被记录，并考虑了中国中部的生物多样性程度，目的是对该地区植物的历史有一个广泛的了解。很明显，在中国中部的山区，许多分类群在 LGM 时期原地生存下来，这表明有足够稳定的栖息地来支持关键物种。一些山区具有高度的特有性，这表明在冰期/间冰期循环中种群的碎片化可能是促进物种形成的一个重要因素。考虑过去的记录和现代物种分布对于选择保护区具有重要意义。
