Geographical and morphological changes of conifers in Yunnan, China during the Cenozoic in response to climatic changes

Abstract

Yunnan province, known as a hot spot of plant diversity, is located in Southwest China and on the southeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Today, there are four families, 21 genera and 56 species of conifers found in Yunnan. Three families, 15 genera and 44 species of fossil conifers have been reported from the Cenozoic in Yunnan. In this study, we investigated the fossil conifers from the Cenozoic in Yunnan and their corresponding living species and evaluated the distribution and climatic conditions of the extant genera. Based on this analysis, paleoclimates of the fossils were reconstructed to determine the migration patterns of these conifers in response to climatic changes caused by the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Our analyses show that the cooling trend led to a southward expansion and migration of conifers to warm and humid climate areas since the early Oligocene. In addition, the drought tendency led to the disappearance of certain conifer species from Yunnan, and the strengthening monsoon climate resulted in the migration of conifers eastward to eastern China or coastal areas, westward to western Yunnan, southeast Tibet and northern Myanmar and northward to dry and cold North China and North Korea. Likely adaptive morphological changes also occurred among the conifer species. The study also revealed that the diversity and composition of conifers in Yunnan have changed significantly since the early Oligocene with the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and climatic changes and that the extant lineages of Yunnan conifers appeared in the late Miocene.