Modern pollen dataset of the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract. Modern pollen datasets can provide invaluable data for interpreting temporal variations in climate, vegetation, land cover, and plant diversity from fossil pollen. Here we present 555 pollen count data, identified from topsoil collected within plant plots across a vast area of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and along the southern margin of Xinjiang that borders the TP. This dataset fills a geographical gap in the published datasets that offer pollen count data for this area. Ordination analysis and multiple regression reveal that precipitation is the primary factor influencing the spatial distribution of pollen assemblages across the entire study area. Furthermore, ordination analysis indicates that pollen assemblages can be used to distinguish vegetation types in the southeastern TP, such as coniferous forest, alpine shrubland, and alpine meadow, from vegetation types found in other regions of TP. Additionally, it is possible to distinguish vegetation types that have low precipitation or moisture requirements based on pollen assemblages. Generalized additive models demonstrate that six commonly used pollen ratios, involving taxa such as Artemisia, Amaranthaceae, Cyperaceae, and Poaceae, are not sufficiently reliable for reflecting changes in annual precipitation. Nevertheless, they can provide some indication of changes in vegetation or landscape. This dataset holds various potential applications in paleoecological and paleoclimatic research. It not only offers a scientific foundation for reconstructing changes in climate and vegetation over time, but also enables the assessment of the reliability of pollen assemblages in representing the dynamics of vegetation cover, functional traits, and plant diversity, by integrating data on simultaneously measured plot-level plant communities and functional traits. Data from this study, including pollen count data for each sample and site, alongside the geographical coordinates, altitude, local vegetation type of each sampling site, dry weight of each sample used for pollen extraction, Lycopodium (marker) grains per tablet, and the identified number of Lycopodium spores, are available at https://doi.org/10.11888/Paleoenv.tpdc.302015 (Liao and Ni, 2025).