生物标志物在全新世古气候和古环境研究中的应用进展

全新世作为最年轻的一个地质年代,其气候环境变化与人类社会发展息息相关。回顾了近年来全新世古气候和古环境研究的进展,总结了重建古气候和古环境的常用方法,重点介绍了生物标志物包括萜类化合物、长链烯酮、甘油二烷基甘油四醚、甾醇、烷基酯类、木质素和色素在该领域的应用,并提出了开发新型生物标志物、构建多指标体系,以及与地球微生物学、生物化学、微生物学等相关学科开展交叉研究等展望。     

甘青地区定西巉口齐家文化时期的古气候环境

甘青地区从新石器时代以来黄河流域上游各个支流分布着大量的古文化遗址。我们首次在甘青地区定西巉口5 200～3 700 cal a BP时期地层中发现了齐家文化遗存。通过对瓷器残片的初步分析,认为该地区的古文化代表了原始文明的封闭性,但落后的生产方式也受到当时较发达主流文化中先进生产技术的影响,表现出丝绸之路古文明的传承和交流。本文对粒度、碳酸盐含量、TOC含量,以及有机组分、元素含量等古环境指标的综合分析,结合5个AMS ~(14)C年代值建立的深度-年代模式,对巉口剖面末次冰消期以来的古环境进行重建。结果表明,～13 300 cal a BP气候干冷; 13 300～11 200 cal a BP气候干旱、较少陆生植物; 11 200～5 200 cal a BP气候较为适宜,陆生植被发育,木本植物数量增加,为半干旱森林-草原环境; 5 200～3 700 cal a BP期间草本和木本植物急剧减少,气候干旱程度增加; 3 700～2 200 cal a BP气候处于干旱-半干旱状态,以疏林草原植被为主; 2 200 cal a BP以来该地区人类活动加强。巉口齐家文化遗址位于5 200～3 700 cal a BP期间的河漫滩沉积环境中,齐家文化的兴起和衰落处于气候干冷、陆生植被极不发育时期,人们主要在靠近河道的漫滩一级阶地上择水而居。     

Reproduction of olive tree habitat suitability for global change impact assessment

The olive tree is so typical of the Mediterranean climate that its presence in a territory qualifies the climate of this as Mediterranean. Many clues indicated that in the past olive cultivation limits moved northward or southward in the Northern Hemisphere according to warmer or cooler climate, respectively. This makes the olive tree cultivation area a possible biological indicator of changes in climate and the identification of the climatological parameters that limit its cultivation plays an important role for climate change impact assessment. In this work, three different approaches were compared, with the aim to compare methodologies suited to predict olive tree distribution over the Mediterranean basin: two classifiers (Random Forest, RF and an Artificial Neural Network, ANN) and a spatial model to infer climatic limiters of plant distribution (CLPD). These methodologies were applied within a framework including a geographical information system (GIS), which spatially defined olive tree cultivated area, and climatological informative layers (average temperature and cumulated rainfall, 50 km × 50 km), which were used as predictor variables. The results indicated that RF achieved on the whole, the lowest classification error (113 misclassified cases on 1906 test cases) followed by ANN (128 cases) and CLPD (153 cases). A validation test, performed over areas out of the Mediterranean basin where olive tree is cultivated (i.e. California and Southern Australia), confirmed the goodness of the RF fitted model in predicting olive tree suitable areas. In general, climatic predictor variables of the coldest and warmest periods of the year were the most significant in determining the limits of suitable olive cultivation area for these methodologies. In particular, temperature of January and July and rainfall of October and July were the climatic predictor variables having highest significance for both RF and ANN. Temperature of January >2 °C, of July >20 °C and cumulated annual rainfall >240 mm were the bounds found in the spatial model. The fitted RF model, coupled with the results of both Regional and General Circulation Model, was finally proposed to assess climate change impact on olive tree cultivated area in the Mediterranean basin.     

Emergence of long distance bird migrations: a new model integrating global climate changes

During modern birds history, climatic and environmental conditions have evolved on wide scales. In a continuously changing world, landbirds annual migrations emerged and developed. However, models accounting for the origins of these avian migrations were formulated with static ecogeographic perspectives. Here I reviewed Cenozoic paleoclimatic and paleontological data relative to the palearctic–paleotropical long distance (LD) migration system. This led to propose a new model for the origin of LD migrations, the ‘shifting home’ model (SHM). It is based on a dynamic perspective of climate evolution and may apply to the origins of most modern migrations. Non-migrant tropical African bird taxa were present at European latitudes during most of the Cenozoic. Their distribution limits shifted progressively toward modern tropical latitudes during periods of global cooling and increasing seasonality. In parallel, decreasing winter temperatures in the western Palearctic drove shifts of population winter ranges toward the equator. I propose that this induced the emergence of most short distance migrations, and in turn LD migrations. This model reconciliates ecologically tropical ancestry of most LD migrants with predominant winter range shifts, in accordance with requirements for heritable homing. In addition, it is more parsimonious than other non-exclusive models. Greater intrinsic plasticity of winter ranges implied by the SHM is supported by recently observed impacts of the present global warming on migrating birds. This may induce particular threats to some LD migrants. The ancestral, breeding homes of LD migrants were not ‘northern’ or ‘southern’ but shifted across high and middle latitudes while migrations emerged through winter range shifts themselves. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.