title: Temporal Succession of Ancient Phytoplankton Community in Qinghai Lake and Implication for Paleo-environmental Change.
abstract: Tibetan lake sediments in NW China are sensitive recorders of climate change. However, many important plankton members do not leave any microscopic features in sedimentary records. Here we used ancient DNA preserved in Qinghai Lake sediments to reconstruct the temporal succession of plankton communities in the past 18,500 years. Our results showed that seven classes and sixteen genera of phytoplankton in the lake underwent major temporal changes, in correlation with known climatic events. Trebouxiophyceae and Eustigmatophyceae were predominant during the cold periods, whereas Chlorophyceae, Phaeophyceae, Xanthophyceae, Bacillariophyceae, and Cyanophyceae were abundant during the warm periods. The inferred changes in temperature, nutrients, precipitation, and salinity, as driven by the Westerlies and summer Monsoon strength, likely contributed to these observed temporal changes. Based on these correlations, we propose the phytoplankton index as a proxy to reconstruct the stadial versus interstadial climate change history in Qinghai Lake. This taxon-specific index is free of terrestrial contamination, sensitive to short-term climatic oscillations, and continuous in recording all climatic events in the lake. The validity of this index and its applicability to other lakes is demonstrated by its good correlations with multiple climate records of Qinghai Lake and another lake on the Tibetan Plateau, Kusai Lake.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|School of Earth Science and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Gaoyuan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|School of Earth Science and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|Department of Geology and Environmental Earth Science, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, USA.
authors.forename: Hailiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Weiguo
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|School of Earth Science and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Shang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Microbiology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Hongchen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Microbiology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Microbiology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Geng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D002681:China; D057231:Climate Change; D004777:Environment; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005843:Geography; D060106:Lakes; D010839:Phytoplankton / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D012338:RNA, Ribosomal, 23S / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D012338:RNA, Ribosomal, 23S