title: Transport of airbornePicea schrenkianapollen on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains (Xinjiang, China) and its implication for paleoenvironmental reconstruction.
abstract: The understanding of airborne pollen transportation is crucial for the reconstruction of the paleoenvironment. Under favorable conditions, a considerable amount of long-distance-transported pollen can be deposited far from its place of origin. In extreme arid regions, in most cases, such situations occur and increase the difficulty to interpret fossil pollen records. In this study, three sets of Cour airborne pollen trap were installed on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains to collect airbornePicea schrenkiana(spruce) pollen grains from July 2001 to July 2006. The results indicate thatPiceapollen disperses extensively and transports widely in the lower atmosphere far away from spruce forest. The airbornePiceapollen dispersal period is mainly concentrated between mid-May and July. In desert area, weeklyPiceapollen began to increase and peaked suddenly in concentration. Also, annual pollen indices do not decline even when the distance increased was probably related to the strong wind may pick up the deposited pollen grains from the topsoil into the air stream, leading to an increase of pollen concentration in the air that is irrelevant to the normal and natural course of pollen transport and deposition. This, in turn, may lead to erroneous interpretations of the pollen data in the arid region. This study provided insight into the shift in thePiceapollen season regarding climate change in arid areas. It is recorded that the pollen pollination period starts earlier and the duration became longer. The results also showed that the temperature of May and June was positively correlated with thePiceapollen production. Furthermore, the transport of airbornePiceapollen data is useful for interpreting fossil pollen records from extreme arid regions.
authors.affiliation: Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Road 818, Urumqi, 830011 China ; Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics, Albrecht-von-Haller-Institute for Plant Sciences, University of Göttingen, Untere Karspüle 2, 37073 Göttingen, Germany ; Qira National Field Research Station for Desert Steppe Ecosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qira County , 848300 Hotan, Xinjiang China.
authors.forename: Yanfang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Shun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Hermann
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Behling
authors.forename: Guijin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mu
keywords: Aerobiology; Arid regions; Climate change; Cour method; Pollen dispersion; Sandstorm; Vegetation history