Vegetation changes of Lushan, China between 1959 and 2020 based on pollen data

10.1080/01916122.2024.2428378

Both climatic change and human activity are currently driving the dynamic of vegetation, which may vary from region to region. On Lushan Mountain, located in eastern China, the subtropical secondary forests during the natural succession endure the pressure from ongoing climate warming on the one hand. They are influenced by anthropogenic disturbance on the other hand for recent decades. Previously, palynological research has discovered that the pollen assemblages from surface soil samples on Lushan reflect the characteristics of local vegetation. Here, we did a comparative study by using pollen analysis to investigate the vegetation changes of Lushan from 1959 to 2020. We compared the composition of pollen assemblages obtained in 1959 with that in 2020 along different altitudes. Further, the biomisation method was employed to discover the changes of different vegetation types, which were reflected by the pollen-based reconstructed biomes. Meanwhile, the temporal beta diversity analysis was used to extract the sites: that experienced significant vegetation shift and the most important taxa change. Results showed that the pollen composition over the past 60 years on Lushan had altered remarkably. The vegetation shifted at all altitudes. The current vegetation pattern of Lushan: evergreen broadleaved forest at low elevation, temperate deciduous broadleaved forest at middle elevation and cool mixed forest at high elevation, is the successional consequence of the past 60 years. The forces driving the vegetation dynamics might be from multiple sources. However, human disturbance seems to play quite an important role during forest succession. Our study is potentially useful both for paleoecological reconstructions and wider understanding of current climate change that are relevant to subtropical forests of Asia.