Background

Surface pollen studies are extensively used to explore the relationships among pollen, vegetation, climate and human activities. However, whether observed differences in pollen assemblages at the same locality accurately reflect changes in vegetation, climate and human activities over time remains poorly investigated.

Results

Here, we present pollen assemblages from twenty-eight modern samples (soil and moss polsters) taken 17 years apart (2005–2022) at Wenhai and Haligu in northwestern Yunnan, Southwest China, to track environmental changes. We found that the changes in the relative abundance of Abies and evergreen Quercus pollen are potential indicators of climatic change, and an increase in Artemisia pollen and spores of terrestrial ferns such as Osmundaceae, together with a decrease in spores of epiphytic ferns such as Polypodiaceae, are strong signals of human activity in the area. In addition, a comparison of overall palynological richness suggested slightly greater changes at Wenhai than at Haligu.

Conclusion

Our study reveals the possible influence of climate change and human activities on vegetation, provides an easy-to-use field methodology to support rapid assessments of relatively short-term changes in biodiversity, and suggests a role for long-term comparative studies of surface soil samples in monitoring site-specific vegetation changes.