Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:03:29.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Lake ecosystem dynamics and links to climate change inferred from a stable isotope and organic palaeorecord from a mountain lake in southwestern China (ca. 22.6–10.5 cal ka BP)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charlotte G. Cook*
Affiliation:
Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK
Melanie J. Leng
Affiliation:
NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK
Richard T. Jones
Affiliation:
Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK
Peter G. Langdon
Affiliation:
School of Geography, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Enlou Zhang
Affiliation:
Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 73 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, PR China
*
*Corresponding author at: Climate Change Research Centre, Level 4 Mathews Building, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. Fax: + 61 2 9385 8969. E-mail address:[email protected] (C.G. Cook).

Abstract

A detailed understanding of long-term climatic and environmental change in southwestern China is hampered by a lack of long-term regional palaeorecords. Organic analysis (%TOC, %TN, C/N ratios and δ13C values) of a sediment sequence from Lake Shudu, Yunnan Province (ca. 22.6–10.5 cal ka BP) indicates generally low aquatic palaeoproductivity rates over millennial timescales in response to cold, dry climatic conditions. However, the record is punctuated by two marked phases of increased aquatic productivity from ca. 17.7 to 17.1 cal ka BP and from ca. 11.9 to 10.5 cal ka BP. We hypothesise that these shifts reflect a marked, stepwise lacustrine response to Asian summer monsoon strengthening during the last deglaciation.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berger, A., Loutre, M.F., (1991). Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 myr. Quaternary Science Reviews 10, 297317.Google Scholar
Bol, R., Huang, Y., Meredith, J.A., Eglinton, G., Harkness, D.D., Ineson, P., (1996). The 14C age and residence time of organic matter and its lipid constituents in a stagnohumic gley soil. European Journal of Soil Sciences 47, 215222.Google Scholar
Boyle, J., (2007). Loss of apatite caused irreversible early-Holocene lake acidification. The Holocene 17, 543547.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C., (1995). Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: The OxCal Program. Radiocarbon 37, 425430.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C., (2001). Development of the radiocarbon calibration programme. Radiocarbon 43, 355363.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C., (2008). Deposition models for chronological records. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, 4260.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C., (2009). Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51, 337360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C., Higham, T.F., Leach, P., (2004). Towards high precision AMS: Progress and limitations. Radiocarbon 46, 1724.Google Scholar
Cook, C.G., Jones, R.T., Langdon, P.G., Leng, M.J., Zhang, E., (2011). New insights on Late Quaternary Asian palaeomonsoon variability and the timing of the Last Glacial Maximum in southwestern China. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 808820.Google Scholar
Herzschuh, U., (2006). Palaeo-moisture evolution in monsoonal Central Asia during the last 50,000 yr. Quaternary Science Reviews 25, 163178.Google Scholar
Herzschuh, U., Zhang, C., Mischke, S., Herzschuh, R., Mohammadi, F., Mingram, B., Kürschner, H., Riedel, F., (2005). A Late Quaternary lake record from the Qilian Mountains (NW China): Evolution of the primary production and the water depth reconstructed from macrofossil, pollen, biomarker, and isotope data. Global and Planetary Change 46, 361379.Google Scholar
Hodell, D., Brenner, M., Kanfoush, S., Curtis, J., Stoner, J., Song, X., Wu, J., Whitmore, T., (1999). Paleoclimate of southwestern China for the past 50,000 yr inferred from lake sediment records. Quaternary Research 52, 369380.Google Scholar
Jarvis, D.I., (1993). Pollen evidence of changing Holocene monsoon climate in Sichuan Province, China. Quaternary Research 39, 325337.Google Scholar
Korner, C., Paulsen, J., (2004). A world-wide study of high altitude treeline temperatures. Journal of Biogeography 31, 713732.Google Scholar
Kramer, A., Herzschuh, U., Mischke, S., Zhang, C., (2010). Late glacial vegetation and climatic oscillations on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau inferred from the Lake Naleng pollen profile. Quaternary Research 73, 324335.Google Scholar
Leng, M.J., Lamb, A.L., Marshall, J.D., Wolfe, B.B., Jones, M.D., Holmes, J.A., Arrowsmith, C.A., (2006). Isotopes in lake sediments. Leng, M., Isotopes in palaeoenvironmental research. Springer, 147184.Google Scholar
Lin, S., Qiao, Y., Walker, D., (1986). Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation history at Xi Hu, Er Yuan, Yunnan Province, southwest China. Journal of Biogeography 13, 419440.Google Scholar
Mackie, E., Lloyd, J., Leng, M., Bentley, M., Arrowsmith, C., (2007). Assessment of δ13C and C/N ratios in bulk organic matter as palaeosalinity indicators in Holocene and Lateglacial isolation basin sediments, northwest Scotland. Journal of Quaternary Science 22, 579591.Google Scholar
Meyers, P., (1997). Organic geochemical properties of paleoceanographic, paleolimnological and paleoclimatic processes. Organic Geochemistry 27, 213250.Google Scholar
Meyers, P., Lallier-Verges, E., (1999). Lacustrine sedimentary organic matter records of Late Quaternary paleoclimates. Journal of Paleolimnology 21, 345372.Google Scholar
Meyers, P., Teranes, J.L., (2001). Sediment organic matter. Last, W.M., Smol, J.P., Tracking environmental change using lake sediments volume 2: Physical and geochemical methods. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Mollenhauer, G., Kretschmer, S., Kusch, S., Mix, A.C., Eglinton, G., (2008). Contributions from compound-specific radiocarbon and size fraction specific Th-230 excess data towards understanding of sediment redeposition processes in the Panama Basin. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting .Google Scholar
Overpeck, J., Anderson, D., Trumbore, S., Prell, W., (1996). The southwest Indian Monsoon over the last 18,000 yr. Climate Dynamics 12, 213225.Google Scholar
Peel, M.C., Finlayson, B.L., McMahon, T., (2007). Updated world map of the Koppen-Geiger climate classification. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 11, 16331644.Google Scholar
Reimer, P., Baillie, M., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J., Blackwell, P., Bronk Ramsey, C., Buck, C.E., Burr, G.S., Edwards, R.L., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P.M., Guilderson, T.P., Hajdas, I., Heaton, T.J., Hogg, A.G., Hughen, K.A., Kaiser, K.F., Kromer, B., McCormac, G., Manning, S.W., Reimer, R.W., Richards, D.A., Southon, J.R., Talamo, S., Turney, C.S.M., van der Plicht, J., Weyhenmeyer, C.E., (2009). IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0–50,000 yr cal BP. Radiocarbon 51, 11111150.Google Scholar
Reuss, N., Hammarlund, D., Rundgren, M., Segerstrom, U., Eriksson, L., Rosen, P., (2010). Lake ecosystem responses to Holocene climatic change at the subarctic tree-line in Northern Sweden. Ecosystems 13, 393409.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Grootes, P.M., Braziunas, T.F., (1995). The GISP2 δ18O record of the past 16,500 yr and the role of the sun, ocean and volcanoes. Quaternary Research 44, 341354.Google Scholar
Tareq, S.M., Kitagawa, H., Ohta, K., (2011). Lignin biomarker and isotopic records of paleovegetation and climate changes from Lake Erhai, southwest China, since 18.5 ka BP. Quaternary International 229, 4756.Google Scholar
Turney, C., (1999). Lacustrine bulk organic δ13C in the British Isles during the Last Glacial - Holocene Transition. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 31, 7181.Google Scholar
Vreca, P., Muri, G., (2010). Sediment organic matter in mountain lakes of north-western Slovenia and its stable isotopic signatures: Records of natural and anthropogenic impacts. Hydrobiologia 648, 3549.Google Scholar
Wang, L., Sarnthein, M., Erlenkeuser, H., Grimalt, J., Grootes, P., Heilig, S., Ivanova, E., Kienast, M., Pelejero, C., Pflaumann, U., (1999). East Asian monsoon climate during Late Pleistocene: High-resolution sediment records from the South China Sea. Marine Geology 156, 245284.Google Scholar
Wang, Y.J., Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., An, Z.S., Wu, J.Y., Shen, C., Dorale, J.A., (2001). A high-resolution absolute-dated Late Pleistocene Monsoon record from Hulu Cave, China. Science 294, 23452348.Google Scholar
Watson, R., Zinyowera, M., Moss, R., (2007). The regional impacts of climate change: an assessment of vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, .Google Scholar
Wolfe, B., Edwards, T., Aravena, R., (1999). Changes in carbon and nitrogen cycling during treeline retreat recorded in the isotopic content of lacustrine organic matter, western Taimyr Peninsula, Russia. The Holocene 9, 215222.Google Scholar
Yu, G., Chen, X., Ni, J., Cheddadi, R., Guiot, J., Han, H., Harrison, S.P., Huang, C., Ke, M., Kong, Z., Li, S., Li, W., Liew, P., Liu, G., Liu, J., Liu, Q., Liu, K.B., Prentice, I.C., Qui, W., Ren, G., Song, C., Sugita, S., Sun, X., Tang, L., Van Campo, E., Xia, Y., Xu, Q., Yan, S., Yang, X., Zhao, J., Zheng, Z., (2000). Palaeovegetation of China: A pollen data-based synthesis for the mid-Holocene and last glacial maximum. Journal of Biogeography 27, 635664.Google Scholar
Zeng, Z., Ding, Y., Pan, J., Wang, H., Gregg, J., (2008). Climate change – the Chinese challenge. Science 319, 730731.Google Scholar
Zhang, C., Mischke, S., (2009). A Lateglacial and Holocene lake record from the Nianbaoyeze Mountains and inferences of lake, glacier and climate evolution on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Quaternary Science Reviews 28, 19701983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, H., Zhao, J., Feng, Y., Gagan, M.K., Zhou, G., Yan, G., (2008). Distinct climate change synchronous with Heinrich event one, recorded by stable oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions in stalagmites from China. Quaternary Research 69, 306315.Google Scholar