Abstract
Modern pollen records have been used to successfully distinguish between specific prairie types in North America. Whether the pollen records can be used to detect the occurrence of Eurasian steppe, or even to further delimit various steppe types was until now unclear. Here we characterized modern pollen assemblages of meadow steppe, typical steppe and desert steppe from eastern Eurasia along an ecological humidity gradient. The multivariate ordination of the pollen data indicated that Eurasian steppe types could be clearly differentiated. The different steppe types could be distinguished primarily by xerophilous elements in the pollen assemblages. Redundancy analysis indicated that the relative abundances of Ephedra, Tamarix, Nitraria and Zygophyllaceae were positively correlated with aridity. The relative abundances of Ephedra increased from meadow steppe to typical steppe and desert steppe. Tamarix and Zygophyllaceae were found in both typical steppe and desert steppe, but not in meadow steppe. Nitraria was only found in desert steppe. The relative abundances of xerophilous elements were greater in desert steppe than in typical steppe. These findings indicate that Eurasian steppe types can be differentiated based on recent pollen rain.
Highlights
Pollen data may be used to characterize current [e.g. 1–5] and ancient [e.g. 6–10] plant communities
The surface pollen assemblages of the Inner Mongolian steppe yielded 34 palynomorphs, consisting of 27 non-arboreal and 7 arboreal elements (S1 Fig., S3 Table)
We determined that surface pollen data could be used to differentiate the three types of steppe, and the four environmental variables explained the variation in pollen-based plant communities (Fig. 3A)
Summary
Pollen data may be used to characterize current [e.g. 1–5] and ancient [e.g. 6–10] plant communities. Modern pollen assemblages have been used to distinguish grassland types [e.g. 11–16]. Hoyt [12] determined the main floral elements represented as pollen were useful for distinguishing prairie types in the Great Plains, North America. They determined that prairie could be clearly differentiated from forest, and four types of prairie (i.e. tallgrass, mixed-grass, short-grass and desert grasslands) could be distinguished from each other using pollen data.
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