Vegetational and climatic significance of modern pollen rain in northwestern Tibet

In northwestern Tibet, an atmospheric pollen sampling was performed weekly during one year (August 1989 to August 1990). Moreover, 18 dust flux samples were obtained in the same region which covers three geographical units: the western margin of the Taklimakan desert, the northern Karakorum and the northwestern Kunlun mountains. The atmospheric pollen results show that the annual pollen frequency is dominated by regional components of montane and alpine desert and steppe, such as Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae, Cupressaceae and Poaceae. They also show that pollen taxa derived from much more distant sources such as warm temperate and subtropical humid forest zones are sometimes well represented. It is inferred that the majority of airborne pollen has been carried by wind during the flowering seasons of the plants, and this provides an evaluation of the influence of southerly and southwesterly summer monsoon air movements. The similarity of pollen spectra between dust flux samples and the atmospheric pollen trap from the Kunlun Mountains suggests that the pollen deposition evaluated by the dust flux method is representative of the pollen rain in the studied area. The dust samples from lower altitudes are characterized by high values of Chenopodiaceae and low ratios of Artemisia/Chenopodiaceae which vary clearly with altitude and possibly with moisture level. The Artemisia/Ephedra ratio shows similar variations to A/C. The percentage AP value is generally higher in mountains Like Kunlun where the plant cover is extremely low in comparison with semiarid massifs such as Karakorum. Therefore, interpretation of AP pollen in the fossil record must take into account long distance wind transport. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.