近日，中国科学院昆明植物研究所古气候变迁与物种演变周浙昆研究员带领的古气候变迁与物种演变研究组近年来一直从事中国新生代植物群古气候重建方面的研究，重点对横断山地区的新生代植物群开展了深入的研究，定量重建了晚中新世云南开远和临沧两个古植物群的古气候。两项研究成果均发表于国际古生物学领域著名学术期刊Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology（JCR Top 15%，Paleontology）。
此项研究选取了中国从南至北50个非干旱区域的森林植被为采样点，研究了采样点内所有木本双子叶植物叶片形态特征组合与年均温的相关性，从而建立了叶缘—年均温中国模型。这一模型表明，叶缘—年均温中国模型与叶缘—年均温北美模型最为接近，表明两地区叶片形态与气候相关性的相似性，矫正了以往国际上最为常用的定量重建古年均温模型；同时，这一研究成果为中国新生代化石植物群的古气候研究提供了更为可靠的模型。目前，该研究组仍在继续深入挖掘叶片形态所蕴含的更多气候参数信息，为新生代的古气候定量重建提供更多可靠的研究模型。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
PALAIOS 25(4):234-238. 2010
LEAF MARGIN ANALYSIS: A NEW EQUATION FROM HUMID TO MESIC FORESTS IN CHINA
TAO SU1,2,3, YAO-WU XING1,2,3, YU-SHENG (CHRISTOPHER) LIU4,e,*, FRéDéRIC M.B. JACQUES1, WEN-YUN CHEN1,2, YONG-JIANG HUANG1,2, and ZHE-KUN ZHOU1,e,*
1Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Biogeography, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650204, China
2Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
4Department of Biological Sciences and Don Sundquist Center of Excellence in Paleontology, Box 70703, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee 37614-1710, USA
Leaf margin analysis (LMA) is a widely used method that applies present-day linear correlation between the proportion of woody dicotyledonous species with untoothed leaves (P) and mean annual temperature (MAT) to estimate paleotemperatures from fossil leaf floras. Previous works demonstrate that LMA shows regional constraints and to date, no equation has been modeled directly from Chinese forests. Fifty humid to mesic Chinese forests were chosen to understand the relationship between percentage of untoothed leaf species and MAT in China. Consistent with previous studies, the Chinese data indicate that P shows a strong linear correlation with MAT, but the actual relationship is a little different from those recognized from other regions. Among the several currently used LMA equations, the one resulting from North and Central American and Japanese data, rather than the widely used East Asian LMA equation, yields the closest values to the actual MATs of the Chinese samples (mean absolute error = 1.9 °C). A new equation derived from the Chinese forests is therefore developed, where MAT = 1.038 + 27.6 × P. This study not only demonstrates the similarity of the relationship between P and MAT in the Northern Hemisphere, but also improves the reliability of LMA for paleoclimate reconstructions of Chinese paleofloras.
