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Introduction
Publications
Publications (180)
Tsuga (hemlock) is a small genus of 10 extant species in the Pinaceae, with a disjunct distribution in East Asia and eastern and western North America. Reliable species‐level identification of Tsuga fossils depends on the recovery of seed cones with intact bracts, but such cones are rare in the fossil record. Here we describe a new fossil species o...
Buckwheat is an important crop which originated in China and spread widely across Eurasia. However, exactly where in China domestication took place remains controversial. Archaeological and palynological records suggest a longer cultivation history of buckwheat in northern China than in southwestern China, but this conflicts with phylogenetic evide...
Previous palaeoenvironmental reconstructions have implied that East Asia was dominated by a zonal climate pattern during the Eocene, with an almost latitudinal arid/semiarid band at ~ 30° N. However, this long-standing model has recently been challenged by growing body of multidisciplinary evidence. Some studies indicated that central China was cha...
The earliest Crocodylia from Asia have been represented so far only by alligatoroids and planocraniids. Although definitive crocodyloids are not known until the late Eocene, it has been hypothesized that Asiatosuchus-like basal crocodyloids originated in Asia before the late Palaeocene. In this paper, we describe a new fossil crocodyloid from the l...
Abstract for the 2021 Theme Day organized by the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences. This abstract is based on ongoing research.
As a very important plant resource, wood played varied and important roles in the lives of ancient people. In the present study, wood was discovered in the Yanghai cemetery of the Turpan Basin, which belonged to the Subeixi culture (~1300BC–200AD). By using traditional classification techniques of wood anatomy, four taxa of wood, viz. Populus sp.,...
Pinus (Pinaceae) is the largest genus of the conifers, characterised by needle-leaves usually in fascicles of 2–5 and seed cones with highly specialised and diversified apophyses and umbos. Although a denticulatomucronate umbo is the most common umbo type in the subsection Pinus, genus Pinus, this type has not been well documented in the fossil rec...
The evolution of the Asian monsoon from the Late Oligocene to the Early Miocene is poorly understood. Here, we first reconstruct the precipitation data of central Tibet during 26-16 Ma, applying the coexistence approach to sedimentary pollen data, and detect an intensified Asian monsoon with ∼1.35 and ∼0.33 Ma cycles. Paleoclimate modeling is used...
This research (1) reports mega-fossil evidence of Marsilea and a pollen
assemblage from the same fossil bed at 24.1 Ma in the Lunpola Basin; (2) estimates the elevation of the Lunpola paleolake, central Tibetan Plateau as 2990-3690 m asl, constrained by both paleolatitude and paleotemperature corrections; (3) depicts the ecosystem around this paleo...
Although Trapa is a well-defined genus of distinctive freshwater plants with accumulations of extensive morphological and embryological autapomorphies, its phylogenetic relationships have long been unclear. Formerly placed in the monotypic family Trapaceae, Trapa is now recognized as sister to Sonneratia within Lythraceae s.l., although both genera...
The Hengduan Mountains of Southwest China are considered the most biologically diverse temperate ecosystem in the world. Here, we present a ~ 10,000-year pollen record from Shuanghaizi Lake, northwestern Yunnan, which we use to reconstruct vegetation dynamics, climatic fluctuations and variability in the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM). The results sug...
The genus Olbitherium was originally described in 2004 from the early Eocene of the Wutu Formation in China as a ‘perissodactyl-like’ archaic ungulate. Described material of Olbitherium consists of partial dentaries with lower cheek teeth, isolated upper molars, and an isolated upper premolar. Subsequent collaborative fieldwork by Belgian and Chine...
The ancient Silk Road was a link of economic-cultural exchanges and religious communication between China and the West. Turpan in Xinjiang is an important site on this road and was once one of the areas where Buddhism flourished in the Western Regions. However, the relationship between environment, agricultural activity and Buddhism has received li...
The Younger Dryas (YD) is the most recent abrupt climatic event recognized during the transition from the last glaciation to the Holocene. Growing evidence from the middle and high latitudes of Europe and North America shows that the climate within the YD event was highly unstable. Until recently, however, climate instability during this event has...
This paper describes the fossil fruits of Scirpus weichangensis X.Q. Liang, sp. nov. from the early Miocene of Guangyongfa Village, Weichang County, Hebei Province, North China. The fossil fruits are obovate in shape and their lateral sections are plumply trigonous. The cell walls of the surface are straight. The persistent stout bristles have down...
Age and origin of ancient famous Karez water systems in the oases of the Turpan Basin are open questions in geoarchaeological and historical research. Four hypotheses exist: (a) invention during Han dynasty more than 2000 years ago, (b) transfer of technology from Persian Qanat’s more than 3000 years ago, (c) independent invention of local Uyghur p...
Multi-proxy study of a 240 cm deep Lashoda Tal (lake) sediment profile, located adjacent to an archaeological mound in Central Ganga Plain, highlights the climate induced changes in the vegetation, ecology and culture since ∼25500 cal BP. Between ∼25500 and 22200 cal BP, the region shows grassland, incipient drainage and small ponds formed seasonal...
The Holocene (11,500 cal. a B.P. to the present) is marked by the beginning of the Neolithic Age and origin of agriculture. The Holocene climatic changes no doubt influenced vegetation successions and human living conditions. However, few studies have attempted to link the palaeo-ecological data with archaeological evidence in order to understand H...
The Pliocene fluvio-lacustrine sediments of the Yuanmou Basin, Yunnan, near the southeastern part of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China, have yielded diverse and abundant assemblages of fossilized mammals and woods. The Yuanmou fossil woods reveal a wood flora with the highest diversity in the Cenozoic wood in China. The woods can play an important role...
Five plant species, all with lateral sporangia aggregated into strobili terminating smooth stems, have been circumscribed from the Lower Devonian Pingyipu Group exposed in Jiangyou County, Sichuan, China. Four have involved reinvestigation of fossils described more than twenty years ago plus, in some instances, observations on more recently collect...
A lower jaw of the mesonychian Hapalodectes is reported from Nongshanian sediments (Upper Doumu Formation; middle Paleocene) of the Qianshan Basin (Anhui Province, China). The fragmentary mandible is only the third specimen of Hapalodectidae discovered in Paleocene deposits, and the first in south east China; it is moreover the oldest, the two othe...
The Hengduan Mountains, with a distinct altitudinal differentiation and strong vertical vegetation zonation, occupy an important position in southwestern China as a global hotspot of biodiversity. Pollen analysis of lake sediments sampled along an altitudinal gradient in this region helps us to understand how this vegetation zonation arose and how...
Inferred ages based on age-depth model.
(DOCX)
Descriptions of Lower Devonian plants from Yunnan, South China, have revolutionized concepts of diversity and disparity in tracheophytes soon after they became established on land. Sichuan assemblages have received little attention since their discovery almost 25 years ago and require revision. With this objective, fieldwork involving detailed logg...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155507.].
The early Cenozoic was characterized by a very warm climate especially during the Early Eocene. To understand climatic changes in eastern Asia, we reconstructed the Early Eocene vegetation and climate based on palynological data of a borehole from Wutu coal mine, East China and evaluated the climatic differences between eastern Asia and Central Eur...
Figure A, Coexistence intervals for all the parameters calculated by the CA. The arrows show determination taxa for seven climatic parameters (1. Pinus; 2. Picea; 3. Abies; 4. Taxodiaceae; 5. Ephedra; 6. Alnus; 7. Betula; 8. Castanopsis; 9. Tilia; 10. Quercus; 11. Corylus; 12. Juglans; 13. Ulmus; 14. Carya; 15. Pterocarya; 16. Ilex; 17. Artemisia;...
We introduce research advances in vegetation succession and climatic changes in Beijing, North China, since the Holocene. In the early Holocene (12 000–8 000 cal a B. P.), a grassland and/or needle- and broad-leaved mixed forest was present, with an increment in broad-leaved trees, which indicated a relatively cold and dry climate changing to warm...
Thuja, a genus of Cupressaceae comprising five extant species, presently occurs in both East Asia (3 species) and North America (2 species) and has a long fossil record from Paleocene to Pleistocene in the Northern Hemisphere. Two distinct hypotheses have been proposed to account for the origin and present distribution of this genus. Here we recogn...
We apply the coexistence approach (CoA) to reconstruct mean annual precipitation (MAP), mean annual temperature (MAT), mean temperature of the warmest month (MTWA) and mean temperature of the coldest month (MTCO) at 44 pollen sites on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The modern climate ranges of the taxa are obtained (1) from county-level presence/abse...
The area and elevation of the Tibetan Plateau over time has directly affected Asia's topography, the characteristics of the Asian monsoon, and modified global climate, but in ways that are poorly understood. Charting the uplift history is crucial for understanding the mechanisms that link elevation and climate irrespective of time and place. While...
Pollen, phytoliths and δ 13C signatures of soil organic matter from two fluvial sedimentary sequences of the Darjeeling foothill region, eastern Himalayas are used to portray palaeoclimatic oscillations and their impact on regional plant communities over the last ∼50 ka. Quantitative palaeoclimate estimation using coexistence approach on pollen dat...
Investigation of unfigured specimens in the original collection of Zosterophyllum yunnanicum Hsü, 1966 from the Lower Devonian (upper Pragian to basal Emsian) Xujiachong Formation, Qujing District, Yunnan, China has provided further data on both sporangial and stem anatomy. We show that the sporangia dehisced into more or less equal valves through...
Modern pollen records have been used to successfully distinguish between specific prairie types in North America. Whether the pollen records can be used to detect the occurrence of Eurasian steppe, or even to further delimit various steppe types was until now unclear. Here we characterized modern pollen assemblages of meadow steppe, typical steppe...
A new euphyllophyte, Planatophyton hujiersitense gen. et sp. nov., is described on the basis of adpression fossils collected from a late Early or Middle Devonian locality from the Hujiersite Formation in the Hujiersite area, Hoboksar County, North Xinjiang, North-West China. The plant is possibly rhizomatous and comprises main axes with alternately...
The Earth has undergone a significant climate switch from greenhouse to icehouse during the Plio-Pleistocene transition (PPT) around 2.7-2.4 million years ago (Ma), marked by the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere glaciation (NHG) ~2.7 Ma. Evidence based on oceanic CO2 ([CO2 ]aq ), supposed to be in close equilibrium with the atmospheric CO...
The ages of a fruticose lichen of Usnea aurantiacoatra (Jacq.) Bory, from Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, Southwest Antarctic, were determined by radiocarbon (14C), and it is 1993-1996 at bottom and 2006-2007 at top of the lichen branch. The growth rates of U. aurantiacoatra calculated are 4.3 to 5.5 mm year-1 based on its length and ages. Th...
The historical reconstruction of the origin and dispersal of plant taxa in space and time facilitates a better understanding of their modern distribution patterns. However, most studies of paleobiogeography have focused on terrestrial plants, and the distribution changes of aquatic plants are less well understood. Here we study the lotus plant Nelu...
The Thousand Buddha Grottoes of Tuyoq, Turpan, Xinjiang, China were once a famous Buddhist temple along the ancient Silk Road which was first constructed in the Fifth Century (A.D.). Although archaeological researches about the Grottoes have been undertaken for over a century, the ancient environment has remained enigmatic. Based on seven clay samp...
Seeds of the genus Weigela (Caprifoliaceae) are described from the Early Miocene Hannuoba Formation of Weichang County, Hebei Province, China. They are flat, elliptic, with translucent membranous wings on three sides. Comparison with extant and fossil species of Weigela indicates that these seeds are different which therefore were assigned to a new...
Didymoconidae are an enigmatic group of Asian endemic insectivorous mammals. We describe the new didymoconid species Archaeoryctes wangi sp. nov. from the Upper Member of the Wanghudun Formation (Middle Paleocene). This new species from the Qianshan Basin (Anhui Province, China) forms an interesting geographical intermediate between A. notialis fro...
Branches and leafy shoots of fossil Glyptostrobus Endlicher (Cupressaceaes.l.), preserved as compressions of leaf cuticle with stomata and a single scale of a seed cone, have been found for the first time in the Jijuntun Formations of the Eocene in Fushun, Liaoning Province, NE China. These fossil remains are identified as Glyptostrobus by comparin...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jse.12032/abstract
Branches and leafy shoots of fossil Glyptostrobus Endlicher (Cupressaceae s.l.), preserved as compressions of leaf cuticle with stomata and a single scale of a seed cone, have been found for the first time in the Jijuntun Formations of the Eocene in Fushun, Liaoning Province, NE China....
Eocene palynological samples from 37 widely distributed sites across China were analysed using Co-existence Approach (CA) to determine trends in space and time for seven palaeoclimate variables: Mean Annual Temperature (MAT), Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP), Mean Temperature of the Warmest Month (WMMT), Mean Temperature of the Coldest Month (CMMT),...
Palynomorphs extracted from the mud coffins and plant remains preserved at the archaeological site of Xiaohe Cemetery (Cal. 3980 to 3540 years BP) in Lop Nur Desert of Xinjiang, China were investigated for the reconstruction of the ancient environments at the site. The results demonstrate that the Xiaohe People lived at a well-developed oasis, whic...
The moss, Warnstorfia exannulata (Schimp.) Loeske, was first reported forming a carpet beside a water pool in Ny-Ålesund (78°56′N), Svalbard in 1959. Fifty years later, in 2008, it was found growing as an aquatic in a pool. The moss is sensitive to seasonal changes and exhibits a pattern of seasonal growth: summer stems with densely arranged leaves...
We describe a new avian species, Qianshanornis rapax, gen. et sp. nov., from the middle Paleocene Wanghudun Formation of the Qianshan Basin in Anhui Province, China. The holotype consists of an incomplete articulated foot and a few associated bones, mainly of the leg, wing, and pectoral girdle. Qianshanornis rapax is characterized by a derived foot...
Palynological analysis of 24 samples from four types of natural pollen traps (Lugu Lake bottom sediments, surface soil, bark samples, and moss cushions) in four sites at different altitudes from the Lugu Lake area, southwest China, has been undertaken to investigate pollen dispersal and deposition in a mountainous area and assist with the interpret...
Fossil fruits of Schima (Theaceae) and seeds of Toddalia (Rutaceae) have been described as Schima nanlinensis sp. nov. and Toddalia nanlinensis sp. nov. respectively, from the Miocene of Nanlin Formation in Longchuan Basin, Dehong Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. The former are 5-loculed capsules with loculicidal dehiscence and remain...
The Gnetales are a higher group of Gymnosperms, but our current knowledge of the morphology of the early Gnetales is lacking. Most known specimens are fragmentary, which makes it difficult to elucidate the geological history and the early diversity and evolution of the group. New well-preserved specimens have been discovered in Liaoning, north Chin...
Fruit stones were discovered in Mr. Tiao Lei's Tomb (around 300 AD) at Nanchang, China. The morphology and anatomy of the fruit stones were investigated. They are identified as belonging to three species, namely, Chinese plum (Prunus salicina Lindley), red bayberry (Myrica rubra Sieb. et Zucc.), and Chinese date (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.). These stone...
Archaeobotanical studies were undertaken at the Yuergou site, which is located in the Turpan basin in Xinjiang, China, and which has been dated to around 2300–2400 years b.p. Altogether 21 taxa were identified. Four cereal remains were identified, Triticum aestivum, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica. The first thr...
This study reports phytolith diversity in respiratory aerial roots of some true mangrove plants for the first time. To identify the signal of phytoliths retrieved from these respiratory roots in the modern deltaic environments, we have analyzed the phytolith contents of pneumatophores and/or pneumatothodes of 13 mangrove species from 7 families inh...
To understand the vegetation succession and climatic changes at the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau in the Neogene, we reconstructed the Middle Miocene vegetation and climate based on palynological data from four localities, which are at different latitudes along the Ailao Mountains in Yunnan, southwest China. The palynological assemblag...
This paper uses pollen analysis to investigate and document the changing climate
and vegetation during the Holocene based on a 400 cm core in depth obtained at a wetland site at Haligu (3,277 m a. s. l.) on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Yunnan, China. By applying the Coexistence Approach to pollen data from this core, a quantitative reconstructi...
We described the structure of two different morphological gall types, subglobular and fusiform in Ephedra distachya. The gall midge, Xerephedromyia ustjurtensis Fedotova (Dipte-ra: Cecidomyiidae) induces both types of gall formation. Galls are persistent resinous stem swellings usually subglobular and rarely fusiform in shape. Mature galls are soli...
Lop Nur in Xinjiang, Northwest China, is located in the lowest part of the Tarim Basin at an altitude of 780 m and experiences an extremely dry climate with an annual precipitation of only 17 mm and a high evaporation rate of 2,728 mm. The pollen and spores from the Late Miocene strata of a borehole in Lop Nur were analyzed with a view to interpret...
It is demonstrated that palynomorphs can occur in fired ancient potsherds when the firing temperature was under 350°C. Pollen and phytoliths recovered from incompletely fired and fully fired potsherds (ca. 2700 yrs BP) from the Yanghai Tombs, Turpan, Xinjiang, NW China can be used as potential indicators for reconstructing past vegetation and corre...
This paper describes a fossil liverwort in the Posongchong Formation, Lower Devonian (Pragian), Yunnan, China preserved as a partially permineralized compression in gray arenaceous mudstone. The plant comprises a regularly-bifurcating flat ecostate multilayered thallus with entire margins. Following comparisons of this fossil with gametophytes of e...
Yuanmou Basin of Yunnan, SW China, is a famous locality with hominids, hominoids, mammals and plant fossils. Based on the published megaflora and palynoflora data from Yuanmou Basin, the climate of Late Pliocene is reconstructed using the Coexistence Approach. The results indicate a warm and humid subtropical climate with a mean annual temperature...
Koelreuteria yuanmouensis sp. nov. (Sapindaceae) is described from the Pliocene fluvio-lacustrine rocks of Hutiaotan Earth Forest, Yuanmou Basin, Yunnan, China. This is the first report of fossil Koelreuteria wood from Asia. The history of the genus is reviewed. Fruits and leaves of the genus have been reported from the Paleocene onwards in Asia, N...
Species compositions in the mangrove habitats of China and India, especially on Hainan Island (China) and on the Sundarbans
and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (India), are of interest, showing several similarities and differences. The total mangrove
areas of India cover about 6419 km2 with 43 species (23 major and 20 minor species), while the mangro...