Available observations suggest that some mountain regions are experiencing seasonal warming rates that are greater than the global land average. There is also evidence from observational and modeling studies for an elevation-dependent climate response within some mountain regions. Our understanding of climate change in mountains, however, remains challenging owing to inadequacies in observation...

BACKGROUND The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) and its southern and southeastern mountain ranges, Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains (HHM), are one of the most extensive habitats for alpine plants in the world. How ferns occurring in QTP and HHM changed their distribution ranges in response to Quaternary climatic oscillations remains almost unknown. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS We employed sequences of two...

The Tianshan Mountains play a significant role in the Central Asian flora and vegetation. Lagochilus has a distribution concentration in Tianshan Mountains and Central Asia. To investigate generic spatiotemporal evolution, we sampled most Lagochilus species and sequenced six cpDNA locations (rps16, psbA-trnH, matK, trnL-trnF, psbB-psbH, psbK-psbI). We employed BEAST Bayesian inference for datin...

Deciphering the sources of eolian dust on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) is fundamental to reconstruct paleo-wind patterns and paleo-environmental changes. Existing datasets show contradictory source evolutions of eolian dust on the CLP, both on orbital and tectonic timescales. Here, the silicate Sr and Nd isotopic compositions of a restricted grain size fraction (28-45 μm) were measured to tr...

Malus sieversii, a wild progenitor of domesticated apple, is distributed in western Xinjiang of China, eastern part of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. To well understand the genetic structure and the historical demography of this important germplasm resource, we sampled 15 populations with 110 individuals of Malus sieversii from the Yili Valley and the western mountains of the Jungga...

Ecotones are transition zones that form, in forests, where distinct forest types meet across a climatic gradient. In mountains, ecotones are compressed and act as potential harbingers of species shifts that accompany climate change. As the climate warms in New England, USA, high-elevation boreal forests are expected to recede upslope, with northern hardwood species moving up behind. Yet recent ...

A paleomagnetic study of rocks from the northern foot of the Tien Shan and the southern border of the Dzungar Basin, east of Urumqi (44.2°N, 86.0°E), spanning ages from middle Jurassic to early Tertiary was carried out to constrain the tectonic evolution in central Asia since Mesozoic time. Five middle Jurassic sites reveal a remagnetized direction close to the present Earth field in geographic...

the afghan vole had not been reported from north-eastern iran until for the first time its presence was confirmed by examining the pellets of predatory birds from dargaz, kalat, sarakhs and the vicinity of mashhad through studying the molar teeth. by further sampling, colonies of this species were found in the periphery of tandoureh national park in the kopet-dag mountains and also in alpine re...

The study focuses on spatio-temporal changes in the physiological status of the Norway spruce forests located at the central and western parts of the Ore Mountains (northwestern part of the Czech Republic), which suffered from severe environmental pollution from the 1970s to the 1990s. The situation started improving after the pollution loads decreased significantly at the end of the 1990s. The...