Yiming Victoria Wang

Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology

Different proxies for sea surface temperature (SST) often exhibit divergent trends for deglacial warming in tropical regions, hampering our understanding of the phase relationship between tropical SSTs and continental ice volume at glacial terminations. To reconcile divergent SST trends, we report reconstructions of two commonly used paleothermomet...

Hydrogen isotope values (δD) of sedimentary terrestrial leaf wax such as n-alkanes or n-acids have been used to map and understand past changes in rainfall amount in the tropics because δD of precipitation is commonly assumed as the first order controlling factor of leaf wax δD. Plant functional types and their photosynthetic pathways can also affe...

Several techniques are available to examine the isotopic composition of historic lake waters, providing data that can subsequently be used to examine environmental changes. A recently-developed technique is the stable oxygen isotope analysis of subfossil chironomid (Diptera: Chironomidae) head capsules (mostly chitin) preserved in lake sediments. T...

Stable oxygen and hydrogen isotope analyses of fossil aquatic organisms, such as the chitinous head capsules of chironomid larvae (Chironomidae: Diptera), are promising proxies for inferring paleoecological conditions. In order for analyses of stable oxygen (δ18O) and hydrogen isotope ratios (δ2H) of fossil chironomid head capsules to be used effec...

Ancient protein studies have demonstrated their utility for looking at a wide range of evolutionary and historical questions. The majority of palaeoproteomics studies to date have been restricted to high latitudes with relatively temperate environments. A better understanding of protein preservation at lower latitudes is critical for disentangling...

Hydrothermal vent systems are important biodiversity hotspots that host a vast array of unique species and provide information on life's evolutionary adaptations to extreme environments. However, these habitats are threatened by both human exploitation and extreme natural events, both of which can rapidly disrupt the delicate balance of the food we...

Stable isotope analysis of teeth and bones is regularly applied by archeologists and paleoanthropologists seeking to reconstruct diets, ecologies, and environments of past hominin populations. Moving beyond the now prevalent study of stable isotope ratios from bulk materials, researchers are increasingly turning to stable isotope ratios of individu...

Biochemical and biomolecular archaeology is increasingly used to elucidate the consumption, use, origin, and trade of plants in the past. However, it can be challenging to use biomarkers to identify the taxonomic origin of archaeological plants due to limited knowledge of molecular survival and degradation for many key plant compounds in archaeolog...

Significance Understanding the drivers of South Asian monsoon intensity is pivotal for improving climate forecasting under global warming scenarios. Solar insolation is assumed to be the dominant driver of monsoon variability in warm climate regimes, but this has not been verified by proxy data. We report a South Asian monsoon rainfall record spann...

To meet future seafood demands, ingredients derived from algae and other novel and sustainable sources are increasingly being tested and used as replacers to traditional aquafeed ingredients. Algal ingredients in particular are being promoted for their sustainability and their additional functional attributes in farmed aquatic animals. Test on alga...

Humans evolved in a patchwork of semi-connected populations across Africa 1,2 ; understanding when and how these groups connected is critical to interpreting our present-day biological and cultural diversity. Genetic analyses reveal that eastern and southern African lineages diverged sometime in the Pleistocene epoch, approximately 350–70 thousand...

In the present study, we assessed if different legacy and novel molecular analyses approaches can detect and trace prohibited bovine material in insects reared to produce processed animal protein (PAP). Newly hatched black soldier fly (BSF) larvae were fed one of the four diets for seven days; a control feeding medium (Ctl), control feed spiked wit...

Non-human primates are among the most vulnerable tropical animals to extinction and ~50% of primate species are endangered. Human hunting is considered a major cause of increasingly ‘empty forests’, yet archaeological data remains under-utilised in testing this assertion over the longer-term. Zooarchaeological datasets allow investigation of human...

Extreme events caused by global change are increasingly affecting the ocean’s biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem functioning, but it is challenging to observe how food webs respond to rapid habitat disturbances. Benthic communities are particularly vulnerable because their habitats are easily affected by extreme events. Here, we examined how bent...

Millennial‐scale reductions in monsoon precipitation, so‐called Weak Monsoon Intervals (WMIs), have been identified in numerous paleoclimate records across the Afro‐Asian monsoon domain throughout the last glacial‐interglacial cycle. These are considered the regional response to cooling during Heinrich events in the North Atlantic realm and several...

Shallow hydrothermal vents are of pivotal relevance for ocean biogeochemical cycles, including seawater dissolved heavy metals and trace elements as well as the carbonate system balance. The Kueishan Tao (KST) stratovolcano off Taiwan is associated with numerous hydrothermal vents emitting warm sulfur-rich fluids at so-called White Vents (WV) and Y...

Background Stable isotope analysis of single amino acids (AA) is usually applied in food web studies for tracing biosynthetic origins of AA carbon backbones and establishing trophic positions of consumers, but the method is also showing promise for characterizing quantity and quality of dietary lipids and carbohydrates. Methods To investigate whet...

The rapid expansion of the aquaculture industry with carnivorous fish such as salmon has been accompanied by an equally rapid development in alternative feed ingredients. This has outpaced the ability of prevailing authentication method to trace the diet and origins of salmon products at the retail end. To close this gap, we developed a new profili...

Supplementation of nutrients by symbionts enables consumers to thrive on resources that might otherwise be insufficient to meet nutritional demands. Such nutritional subsidies by intracellular symbionts have been well studied; however, supplementation of de novo synthesized nutrients to hosts by extracellular gut symbionts is poorly documented, esp...

Monsoon intensity is driven by changes in hemispheric summer insolation. Marine proxy data show distinct glacial-interglacial variability with changes in vegetation and weathering inferred from the terrigenous fraction, e.g., by plant lipid and mineral composition. Unfortunately, no quantitative evidence is available for differences in monsoonal pr...

Burial of organic carbon in marine sediments has a profound influence in marine biogeochemical cycles and provides a sink for greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4. However, tracing organic carbon from primary production sources as well as its transformations in the sediment record remains challenging. Here we examine a novel but growing tool for tr...

Burial of organic carbon in marine sediments has a profound influence in marine biogeochemical cycles, and provides a sink for greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4. However, tracing organic carbon from primary production sources as well as its transformations in the sediment record remains challenging. Here we examine a novel but growing tool for t...

The Earth Science Women’s Network is an international peer-mentoring network of women in the Earth Sciences, many of whom are in the early stages of their careers. Members work in all areas of earth sciences, come from all career levels, from academia as well as from public and private institutions. The network’s mission is to promote career develo...

Similar magnitudes of Holocene and Eemian monsoonal precipitation and vegetation types of India as revealed by biomarker hydrogen and carbon isotopes

Although both changes in climate (i.e. temperature, precipitation) and atmospheric CO2 are important factors controlling the fraction of C4 vegetation, little is known for their relative contribution in shaping the C3/C4 vegetation evolution in the past. A paleorecord based on stable carbon isotopes (δ13C) of sedimentary leaf wax in the Zambezi cat...

Hydrogen isotope values (dD) of sedimentary terrestrial leaf wax such as n-alkanes or n-acids have been used to map and understand past changes in rainfall amount in the tropics because dD of precipitation is commonly assumed as the first order controlling factor of leaf wax dD. Plant functional types and their photosynthetic pathways can also affe...

Different proxies for sea surface temperature (SST) often exhibit divergent trends for deglacial warming in tropical regions, hampering our understanding of the phase relationship between tropical SSTs and continental ice volume at glacial terminations. To reconcile divergent SST trends, we report reconstructions of two commonly used paleothermomet...

Skills for Networking and Communication Workshop;Madison, Wisconsin, 4-6 June 2012 Women are often underrepresented in academic positions in Earth sciences (M. A. Holmes and S. O'Connell, Where are the women geoscience professors?, 2004, http://www.eas.unl.edu/˜mholmes/images/Where%20are%20the%20Women%20Geoscientists.pdf), with numbers below the cr...

Savannahs contain a mixture of C3 and C4 vegetation, accounting for more than a quarter of global primary production and are the second most important biome on the continents. However, our understanding on how savannahs will respond to rising CO2 concentration and temperatures or the IPCC estimated decrease in rainfall is not yet clear in spite of...

At present, few paleoclimate records exist from the region of southeast Africa. The continental climate history of southeast Africa is of much interest since this region falls under the influence of both the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and Congo Air Boundary (CAB) and likely experienced considerably different hydrological conditions when...

The modern precipitation in Southeast Africa is modulated by multitude of factors, particularly the sea surface temperature (SST). However, the degree of coupling between SST and hydrological cycles during the past in Southeast Africa is still poorly understood. In this study, we use the deltaD and delta13C of sedimentary with odd numbered long-cha...

Current stable isotope techniques permit the development of new approaches for reconstructing past climate and aquatic food webs based on chitinous invertebrate fossils from lake sediments.

Several techniques are available to examine the isotopic composition of historic lake waters, providing data that can subsequently be used to examine environmental changes. A recently-developed technique is the stable oxygen isotope analysis of subfossil chironomid (Diptera: Chironom-idae) head capsules (mostly chitin) preserved in lake sediments....

Several techniques are available to examine the isotopic composition of historic lake waters, providing data that can subsequently be used to examine environmental changes. Recently-developed techniques are the stable oxygen isotope analysis of subfossil chironomid (Diptera: Chironomidae) head capsules (mostly chitin) preserved in lake sediments an...

We present results from multiple stable isotope analyses (δ18O of chironomid larval head capsules, chironomid adult thoraxes and other insect remains and δD, δ13C, δ15N of total organic matter—TOM) of a lake sediment core (04-SVID-03) taken from Stora Vidarvatn in northeastern Iceland to reconstruct past environmental, limnological and δ18O of past...

The stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition (delta C-13 and delta N-15) of plants and lichens can indicate a considerable amount of information about the physiology and ecology of an environment. To our knowledge no stable isotope (C and N) data have been generated for plants and lichens from Iceland. These data could subsequently provide a...

Previous studies have shown that the stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions (delta 18O and deltaD) in various animal tissues can be used to examine past climates and animal migration pattern. Little attention has been paid to the relative roles of diet and water influencing the overall delta 18O and deltaD of animal tissues in freshwater...

Historical records from Iceland provide one of the most compelling lines of evidence for North Atlantic warmth and reduced sea ice during Medieval times, colder summers and expanded sea ice during the Little Ice Age, followed by ameliorated conditions during the 20th century. Icelandic terrestrial records, particularly those derived from lake sedim...

An increasing number of paleolimnological studies are aimed at reconstructing lakewater isotopic composition, and thus (in appropriate hydrologic settings) the isotopic composition of paleo-precipitation. Records of \delta18O and delta D of paleo-precipitation are used to infer changes in climate, including changes in site temperature and storm tra...