Comparison of climatic threshold of geographical distribution between dominant plants and surface pollen in China

The geographical distribution of dominant plant species in China was georeferenced and climatic variables were interpolated into all grids. Accordingly, the percentage distributions of principal pollen taxa based on 1860 surface pollen sites in China were selected and the related climate values were interpolated with the same method. The geographical and climatic comparison between the two datasets indicated that the climate threshold of most pollen taxa from surface pollen is coherent with plant distributions. The climatic envelopes of dominant plant are mostly accordant with those of pollen taxa at certain levels. However, some distinct offsets of the climate ranges exist between the two datasets for most pollen taxa identified at family level, such as Ericaceae, Asteraceae, Poaceae and Chenopodiaceae. The present study provides for the first time rich information on temperature and precipitation in relation to pollen and plant distribution based on the datasets on a continental scale useful for global ecological modeling and Quaternary palaeoclimate reconstruction.