Abstract
Limited topographic connectivity to refugia can delay plant community responses to climate warming, but its influence on long-term community assembly remains unclear. Here we reconstruct plant community dynamics on the eastern Tibetan Plateau over the past 12,000 years using sedimentary ancient DNA records from Dangzi Co and four published datasets, with zeta diversity quantifying shared taxa across sites and time-slices. We examine the roles of climate and topographic connectivity in shaping communities. Warming before 8.5 ka (ka = thousand years before present) triggered upslope migration of lowland woody taxa, but variable topographic connectivity among lakes caused asynchronous assembly. Under a stable mid-Holocene climate (8.5–5.5 ka), niche differentiation increased, promoting community similarity. Subsequent cooling (5.5–3.5 ka) facilitated alpine taxa expansion, maintaining high taxa sharing among lakes. Reduced convergence since 3.5 ka likely reflects cooling and land use. Our findings highlight how topographic connectivity shapes millennial-scale community assembly and biodiversity.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments. We thank Kai Yi for help with sub-sampling, Janine Klimke and Jasmin Tauchelt for their technical support in the paleogenetic laboratories, and Cathy Jenks for English proofreading. Sampling of the Dangzi Co sediment core was conducted with permission from the Sichuan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, China, and the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Bureau of Science and Technology, China.
Funding
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42471179), the Chinesisch-Deutsches Mobilitätsprogramm (project No. M-0359), the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant Glacial Legacy (Grant No. 772852), and the China Scholarship Council (CSC, Grant No. 202204910401 to W.L.; Grant No. 201908130164 to W.S.). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
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Li, W., Shen, W., Stoof-Leichsenring, K.R. et al. Millennial-scale lags in plant assembly are associated with topographic connectivity on the eastern Tibetan Plateau.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03723-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03723-5
Source: Ecology - nature.com
