Knowledge of the long-term land-use history and human-environment interaction processes in broad valleys is essential for the harmonious development of the Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we analyzed high-resolution multi-proxy records derived from Ruba Lake in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, including pollen, grain-size, End-member modelling, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, black carbon (BC), and delta 13C of black carbon (delta 13CBC), to reconstruct the valley agriculture history and its environmental background over the last 2600 years. There is possible evidence that agriculture was practiced in the Ruba Basin since ca. 2000 cal yr BP, while it flourished after ca. 500 cal yr BP, as represented by increases in the pollen abundance and frequency of cereal Poaceae. Increased Artemisia and Nitraria indicate a regional aridification trend on the southern Tibetan Plateau, while elevated BC concentrations and enriched delta 13CBC values reflect intensified human activities. The increase in coarse-grained sediments further suggests enhanced soil erosion under these conditions. Our results confirm that regional drought at ca. 500 cal yr BP (middle Ming Dynasty) did not apparently affect the valley agriculture directly because of advanced cultivation technology and the relatively plentiful water resources.

Vegetation dynamics on the central Tibetan Plateau (TP) over the past two millennia provide critical insights into ecological responses to future warming. In this study, a 42-cm-long sediment core from Jiaruo Co on the central TP, spanning the last two millennia, was analyzed for pollen, charcoal, and geochemical proxies to reconstruct past vegetation and its underlying drivers. From 60 to 550 CE, alpine steppe prevailed around the lake, as evidenced by relatively high pollen percentages of Artemisia, Cyperaceae, and Poaceae, alongside low Amaranthaceae abundance. After 550 CE, a pronounced turnover in pollen assemblages was recorded, characterized by a marked rise in arid-tolerant taxa (e.g., Amaranthaceae, Ephedra, and Rosaceae) and a concurrent decline in Artemisia, Ranunculaceae, and Lamiaceae, indicating a shift toward drought-adapted composition. In addition, both decreased total pollen concentration and increased Pinus abundance indicate reduced vegetation coverage. This functional (increased drought-adapted composition) and structural (reduced coverage) vegetation turnover was primarily driven by aridification, as corroborated by our multiproxy records (e.g., decreasing TOC/TN ratios and increasing Rb/Sr ratios) and independent evidence from previous regional records. We thus infer that this aridification was a regional phenomenon, resulting from the weakening of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM). Our study highlights the substantial ecological risks posed by ongoing warming.

The economic competitiveness of Generation 3 Concentrated Solar Power (Gen3 CSP) depends strongly on the cost-effective integration of high-temperature thermal energy storage, advanced heat exchange systems, and supercritical CO₂ power cycles. This study develops a techno-economic design and optimization framework for coil-wound heat exchangers (CWHEs) applied to Gen3 CSP plants using high-temperature chloride molten salt thermal energy storage. The proposed framework evaluates the economic and technical viability of CWHEs in a system comprising a sodium receiver operating between 520 and 740 °C, MgCl₂–KCl–NaCl ternary chloride salt storage, and a supercritical CO₂ recompression Brayton cycle operating at 250 bar and 480–700 °C. Unlike conventional shell-and-tube heat exchangers and printed circuit heat exchangers, CWHEs offer improved operational flexibility, better tolerance to freeze risk, fouling, chloride corrosion, and rapid thermal transients, which are critical factors affecting long-term investment performance in high-temperature CSP systems. The framework integrates mechanical design based on ASME BPVC requirements, creep and corrosion allowances for Haynes 230 and Type 316H, thermo-hydraulic correlations for helical-coil geometry and low-Prandtl-number sodium, a multi-stream temperature-field model, and a techno-economic optimization model. The objective function minimizes total annual cost by jointly optimizing CWHE geometry and thermal energy storage tank temperatures. Validation against NREL Gen3 CSP design specifications demonstrates that optimized tank-temperature selection reduces the total annual cost of the integrated TES system by 4.2–6.4% across solar multiples ranging from 1.0 to 2.5. Optimized Na–salt CWHEs achieve specific costs of 4.3–5.1 k€/m² and thermal energy costs of 1.8–2.6 €/MWh, representing a 39% cost reduction compared with shell-and-tube designs normalized to the same heat-transfer area. Salt–sCO₂ CWHEs operating at 250 bar and 700 °C show thermal energy costs of 3.7–7.3 €/MWhth, although their first cost remains 61% higher than printed circuit heat exchanger benchmarks.The results indicate that CWHEs can improve the economic feasibility of utility-scale Gen3 CSP by reducing lifetime thermal energy costs while enhancing inspectability, repairability, and tolerance to thermal stress. The multi-stream analysis further reveals temperature variations of up to 11 °C between inlet and outlet tube columns, confirming that simplified LMTD-based approaches may underestimate design and cost risks. Overall, the proposed techno-economic framework provides a practical decision-support tool for optimizing heat exchanger design, thermal storage operation, and capital-cost trade-offs in advanced CSP systems operating above 700 °C.

Abstract Forest expansion and retreat are key drivers of alpine ecosystem dynamics, yet it remains unclear how forest expansion shapes alpine plant communities and whether alpine assemblages that re-emerge after forest decline resemble those of the Late Glacial. Here, we integrate sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) and pollen records from Zhagaer Co on the eastern Tibetan Plateau to reconstruct vegetation changes over the past ∼14 ka. Using Picea abundance as a proxy for forest cover, we apply constrained ordination of sedaDNA-inferred plant communities to identify plant taxa as “winners” and “losers” of forest expansion and compare the composition of loser taxa between the late Glacial and late Holocene cold-open phases. Our results show that forest expansion during the early to mid-Holocene favoured woody and forest-margin taxa (e.g. Rhododendron , Salicaceae), while suppressing alpine forbs and graminoids (e.g. Carex , Thalictrum ), consistent with patterns expected under ecological filtering. However, late Holocene reopening did not fully restore a late Glacial-like alpine community; instead, it was characterised by a stronger contribution of alpine meadow and shrub taxa. This difference may reflect contrasting environmental backgrounds, including higher atmospheric CO2 levels during the late Holocene, ecological legacies of prior forest expansion, and increasing human influence. These findings suggest that forest expansion may lead to long-term restructuring of alpine plant assemblages, and that late Holocene cooling did not simply restore late Glacial alpine communities but instead produced a distinct alpine ecosystem state. Together, these results highlight the long-term legacy of treeline dynamics in shaping alpine ecosystem trajectories.

Forest expansion and retreat are key drivers of alpine ecosystem dynamics, yet it remains unclear how forest expansion shapes alpine plant communities and whether alpine assemblages that re-emerge after forest decline resemble those of the Late Glacial. Here, we integrate sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) and pollen records from Zhagaer Co on the eastern Tibetan Plateau to reconstruct vegetation changes over the past similar to 14 ka. Using Picea abundance as a proxy for forest cover, we apply constrained ordination of sedaDNA-inferred plant communities to identify plant taxa as "winners" and "losers" of forest expansion and compare the composition of loser taxa between the late Glacial and late Holocene cold-open phases. Our results show that forest expansion during the early to mid-Holocene favoured woody and forest-margin taxa (e.g. Rhododendron, Salicaceae), while suppressing alpine forbs and graminoids (e.g. Carex, Thalictrum), consistent with patterns expected under ecological filtering. However, late Holocene reopening did not fully restore a late Glacial-like alpine community; instead, it was characterised by a stronger contribution of alpine meadow and shrub taxa. This difference may reflect contrasting environmental backgrounds, including higher atmospheric CO2 levels during the late Holocene, ecological legacies of prior forest expansion, and increasing human influence. These findings suggest that forest expansion may lead to long-term restructuring of alpine plant assemblages, and that late Holocene cooling did not simply restore late Glacial alpine communities but instead produced a distinct alpine ecosystem state. Together, these results highlight the long-term legacy of treeline dynamics in shaping alpine ecosystem trajectories.

Understanding the variability and forcing mechanisms of the East Asian monsoon (EAM) on different timescales is essential for predicting future climate change and ecosystem evolution. Based on grain size and chromaticity analyses on the sediment sequence from Lake Malianwa, this study reconstructs environmental changes over the past similar to 26,000 years in northern China, providing new insights into paleoclimate evolution since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Two major climatic transitions, occurring ca. 20 ka and 6 ka, are closely associated with the weakening of the similar to 1500-year cycle, potentially reflecting the influence of internal oscillations of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in modulating the strength of the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM). The LGM transition (similar to 20 ka) was primarily triggered by increased Northern Hemisphere summer insolation that accelerated the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet, a strengthening of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and weakening of the EAWM. In contrast, the mid-Holocene transition (similar to 6 ka) is closely linked to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, enhanced El Ni & ntilde;o-Southern Oscillation variability, and associated Arctic amplification, resulting in a synchronous weakening both of the EASM and EAWM. These findings highlight the critical role of high-latitude ocean-atmosphere coupling in regulating cross-equatorial energy transport and shaping the thermodynamic and dynamic structure of the EAM system, providing key insights into rapid climatic transitions under current global warming.

A dataset of pollen extracted from the surface-sediments of lakes with broad spatial coverage is essential for pollen-based reconstructions of past vegetation and climate. We collected 90 new lake surface-sediment pollen samples from the Tibetan Plateau (TP), covering major vegetation types, including alpine forest, alpine meadow, alpine steppe, and alpine desert. By integrating these new data with previously published lacustrine pollen datasets, we established a comprehensive modern pollen dataset comprising 476 samples across the TP, covering the full range of climatic gradients across the TP, with Net Primary Production (NPP) from 0.16 to 6617.36 kg C m−2, mean annual precipitation (Pann) from 97 to 788 mm, mean annual temperature (Tann) −9.09 to 6.93 °C, mean temperature of the coldest month (Mtco) −23.48 to −2.65 °C, and mean temperature of the warmest month (Mtwa) 1.77 to 19.26 °C. Numerical analyses based on the comprehensive modern pollen dataset (n=476) revealed that Pann is the primary climatic determinant for pollen distribution, while NPP is a valuable variable reflecting vegetation conditions. To detect the quantitative relationship between pollen and NPP / Pann, both Weighted-Averaging Partial Least Squares (WA-PLS) and Random Forest algrithom (RF) were employed. The performance of both models suggests that this modern pollen dataset has good predictive power in estimating past NPP and Pann, but RF has a slight advantage with this dataset. This comprehensive modern pollen dataset provides a reliable basis for reconstructing past vegetation and climate changes on the central TP. However, caution is required when applying it to pollen spectra from marginal regions of the TP or to records covering the Last Glacial period, where analogue quality is relatively poor. The dataset, including site locations, pollen percentages, NPP, and climate data for 90 lakes, is available at the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC; Tian et al., 2025; https://doi.org/10.11888/Paleoenv.tpdc.302470).

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is an important dust source region, where frequent dust storms substantially impact the regional ecological environment and even the global climate system. However, the driving mechanisms of dust storms on the northeastern TP during the Holocene are unclear due to the scarcity of geological archives. In this study, a sediment core from Koucha Lake on the northeastern TP was analyzed for grain size, geochemical elements, along with total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN), to infer the Holocene dust storm history and explore the likely driving mechanisms. Our findings indicate that during the late Holocene, especially after 6.9 cal ka BP, dust storm activity intensified with significant fluctuations, reaching a peak after 5 cal ka BP. Notably, our comparison with other climatic environmental records reveals that the pattern of dust storm enhancement during the Holocene diverges from the prevailing trend of increasing moisture availability and vegetation cover, suggesting that these factors may play a limited role in modulating dust storms on the northeastern TP. Instead, the enhancement of dust storms on the northeastern TP during the late Holocene is closely associated with the southward shift of the westerly jet. By revealing dust storm evolution and its mechanisms on the northeastern TP, our study provides a scientific basis for forecasting the future dust storm changes and developing regionally targeted dust mitigation strategies.

Modern pollen distribution and how it relates to vegetation and climate along elevational gradients is crucial information when reconstructing past vegetation and climate from fossil pollen assemblages. In this study, sixty-five samples of moss polsters were collected from an elevation range of 1069-5056 m a.s.l. on the south-eastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) and the relationships between their pollen assemblages and vertical variations in vegetation and climate are investigated. Our results indicate that variations in the pollen assemblages along the elevational gradient reflect the vertical distribution of vegetation. Arboreal pollen grains (predominantly Pinus, Quercus-evergreen, and Betula) can be transported by the wind to high-elevation areas, but percentages of Quercus-evergreen pollen > 10% likely indicate a local source. Thus, interpreting local vegetation from low arboreal pollen percentages can be challenging for stratigraphic pollen assemblages in the south-eastern TP. A redundancy analysis and a boosted regression tree analysis both find that mean temperature of the coldest month (Mt(co)) explains more of the pollen assemblage variance and the arboreal pollen to non-arboreal pollen (AP/NAP) ratio, accounting for 7.07% and 43.11% respectively. Therefore, Mt(co) is the most important climatic factor influencing pollen distribution on the south-eastern TP.

The evolution of alpine lake ecosystems on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau (NETP) over the last millennium has been affected by climate change and human activity. This study reconstructs the palaeoclimate and lake productivity of Xing Co using carbon and oxygen isotopes from aquatic gastropod shells (S13Cshell and S18Oshell), grain-size, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), and the TOC/TN (C/N) ratio. The highest lake productivity - during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) - is likely linked to enhanced photosynthesis of aquatic plants and increased biomass within the lake. This increase was driven by warm, humid climate conditions, indicated by higher S13Cshell values, lower S18Oshell values, and increased coarse-grain content. In contrast, the significant decline in lake productivity during the Little Ice Age (LIA) resulted from deterioration of trophic status and restricted aquatic plant growth under colder, drier climate conditions. However, the decrease in lake productivity since 1950 CE, amid global warming, may be linked to increased soil erosion and sedimentation rate from intensified human activity and land-use changes. The combined effects of climatic shifts and human disturbances highlight the need for ongoing monitoring of lake ecosystems to understand their resilience and response to future environmental changes.

We measured the content of six heavy-metal elements (Co, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb) in 72 lake surface-sediment samples from the Xizang Autonomous Region (referred to as Xizang) of China, and calculated four indices: enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo), pollution load index (PLI), and a comprehensive potential ecological risk index (RI) to explore the differences in the accumulation and the major sources of heavy metals, and to reveal the role of human activities in the ecological environment of high-elevation cold regions. Results show that the heavy-metal contents in lake surface sediment samples in eastern Xizang are much higher than those in central and western areas, and are also higher than the background value of surface soils. Their distribution can be related to regional sources of heavy metals: natural parent material (western Xizang), agriculture (eastern Xizang), mining-related industrial sources (central Xizang), and degree of development of road network (all of Xizang). The majority of lakes in Xizang have a relatively low risk of ecological harm, but there are notable regional peculiarities in the element content and evaluation indices and the lakes in eastern Xizang are at higher risk than those in central and western parts. Lakes at higher ecological risk (such as Lake Butuo (Lake 71) and Samu Co (Lake 68)), remind us that the potential influence of heavy-metal enrichment on lake sediments and aquatic plants should not be overlooked.

Microplastics (MPs) are widely detected in the soil of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with increasing economic activities. However, studies concerning the driving factors affecting the presence of these surface soil MPs for the typical regions with different geographic conditions are still lacking. Here we chose three representative regions (Ali, Yushu, and Haixi) from east to west across the plateau to investigate the distribution and further explore the contributing factors of surface soil MPs. The Spearman rank correlation, Geodetector, Random Forest Regression and Principal Component Analysis were used to unveil how the driving factors influence MPs distribution across the plateau. The results revealed that the MPs abundance, type, size, color and polymer across the Ali, Yushu, and Haixi were different. Microplastic abundance was inversely correlated with the distance from roads and residential areas, but was positively related to precipitation. Moreover, traffic elements were the primary source of MPs pollution in the Ali and Yushu but residential activities were the leading source of MPs contamination in the Haixi. Besides, backward trajectory simulations suggested that atmospheric transport may also contribute to the presence of soil MPs in the representative regions. These results further indicated that different regions may require different measures for controlling MPs pollution in surface soil. This study provides new insights into the distribution and source of MPs and further offers valuable methodology for future research aimed at uncover driving factors contributing MPs pollution across different regions with various geographical conditions.

Benefiting from the rapid development of environmental DNA (eDNA) technologies, sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) emerges as a promising tool for monitoring plant compositions in remote regions. The Tibetan Plateau (TP), renowned for its harsh environment and numerous ponds and lakes, presents a potentially demanding region for the application of sedDNA on vegetation investigations. Here, we used the g and h universal primers for the P6 loop region of the chloroplast trnL (UAA) intron to amplify plant DNA in surface sediments from 59 ponds and small lakes on the southwestern TP. The applicability and limitations of using plant DNA metabarcoding for modern vegetation monitoring and palaeo-vegetation reconstructions have been assessed by comparing sedDNA, pollen, and vegetation survey data. Our results showed that plant DNA metabarcoding recorded 186 terrestrial taxa, of which 30.1% can be identified at the species level. The plant sedDNA approach can effectively disclose the dominant plant taxa (including Asteraceae, Cyperaceae and Poaceae) and significant vegetation assemblages in the vicinity of the investigated sites. The number of taxa and taxonomic resolution of plant sedDNA exceeded that of pollen analysis (75 taxa detected, 5.3% can be identified at species level). Unlike pollen that retains a broad spectrum of regional plant signals (including Pinus and Artemisia), plant sedDNA mirrors very local plants, underscoring its utility in local vegetation monitoring and reconstructions. To conclude, plant DNA metabarcoding of (small) lake sediments warrant increased attention in the future for local vegetation monitoring and reconstructions on the TP.

Understanding the response of long-term aquatic environmental changes in lakes to ongoing climate change and human activities is key to forecasting future lake conditions. In this study, we infer the Holocene limnological changes in Emu Co, a proglacial lake in Nianbaoyuze on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, from sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) data, and palynomorph, element, lithological, and grain-size analyses. We developed a transfer function based on Siberia and Tibet/China surface sedimentary DNA and applied it to Emu Co sedaDNA to trace lake conductivity changes. The results show that the conductivity of Emu Co was high during 12.6-9.7 cal ka BP, often surpassing 1000 mu s cm(-1), driven by elevated summer solar radiation. The freshwater influx from glacial meltwater and precipitation, however, reduced the lake's conductivity as the climate warmed and humidified. This led to a decrease in the abundance of taxa characterised by high conductivity. Freshwater pulses, triggered by climatic fluctuations, likely led to significant variations in conductivity within the overarching downward trend. By 8 cal. ka BP, lake recharge conditions stabilised and conductivity reached a lower level of similar to 70 mu s cm(-1). The warm and humid mid-Holocene (8-5 cal. ka BP) provided suitable habitat conditions for many submerged freshwater taxa. After 5 cal. ka BP, the growth of submerged taxa was restricted, as indicated by a shift from asexual to sexual reproduction in macrophytes, likely in response to suboptimal conditions of a colder and drier climate. Since 1 cal. ka BP, human activities might have increased lake nutrient levels, with an enhanced richness of macrophytes. Our results indicate how millennial-scale hydrological changes in a lake are related to glacial retreat and catchment changes in the alpine region of the Tibetan Plateau, which is today facing climate change much greater than the global average.

Plant environmental DNA extracted from lacustrine sediments (sedimentary DNA, sedDNA) has been increasingly used to investigate past vegetation changes and human impacts at a high taxonomic resolution. However, the representation of vegetation communities surrounding the lake is still unclear. In this study, we compared plant sedDNA metabarcoding and pollen assemblages from 27 lake surface-sediment samples collected from alpine meadow on the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau to investigate the representation of sedDNA data. In general, the identified components of sedDNA are consistent with the counted pollen taxa and local plant communities. Relative to pollen identification, sedDNA data have higher taxonomic resolution, thus providing a potential approach for reconstructing past plant diversity. The sedDNA signal is strongly influenced by local plants while rarely affected by exogenous plants. Because of the overrepresentation of local plants and PCR bias, the abundance of sedDNA sequence types is very variable among sites, and should be treated with caution when investigating past vegetation cover and climate based on sedDNA data. Our finding suggests that sedDNA analysis can be a complementary approach for investigating the presence/absence of past plants and history of human land-use with higher taxonomic resolution.

Due to insufficient palaeo-environmental records, the vegetation history and hydrology of the Tibetan Plateau during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) are uncertain. In this study, a 316-cm-long sediment core covering the last 33.8 thousand years recovered from Koucha Lake on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau was analysed for pollen, along with total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN), to explore past vegetation and hydrology changes. Alpine desert was widely distributed around the lake with sparse vegetation cover between 33.8 and 16.8 cal ka BP, particularly in the LGM, as inferred from the extremely low pollen concentrations together with high proportions of desert pollen taxa and exogenous arboreal taxa. Alpine steppe developed around the lake thereafter and was replaced by alpine meadow at ca. 7 cal. ka BP, which reflects the increasing effective moisture during the mid and late Holocene. The ancient Koucha Lake existed from 33 to 29 cal ka BP as a shallow lake and probably dried out in the LGM with a sediment hiatus (presence of coarse gravel layer), as suggested by the high and low content of Pedias-trum. The current Koucha Lake formed at ca. 20 cal. ka BP with an increase in water level at ca. 16.8 cal ka BP as revealed by faint stratification of the sediments along with higher pollen concentration and presence of Pediastrum and Botryococcus. Our research suggests that pollen concentration should be paid more attention when investigating past vegetation, and that pollen percentages are not comparable among samples with large differences in pollen concentrations.(c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

As the recent permafrost thawing of northern Asia proceeds due to anthropogenic climate change, precise and detailed palaeoecological records from past warm periods are essential to anticipate the extent of future permafrost variations. Here, based on the modern relationship between permafrost and vegetation (represented by pollen assemblages), we trained a Random Forest model using pollen and permafrost data and verified its reliability to reconstruct the history of permafrost in northern Asia during the Holocene. An early Holocene (12–8 cal ka BP) strong thawing trend, a middle-to-late Holocene (8–2 cal ka BP) relatively slow thawing trend, and a late Holocene freezing trend of permafrost in northern Asia are consistent with climatic proxies such as summer solar radiation and Northern Hemisphere temperature. The extensive distribution of permafrost in northern Asia inhibited the spread of evergreen coniferous trees during the early Holocene warming and might have decelerated the enhancement of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) by altering hydrological processes and albedo. Based on these findings, we suggest that studies of the EASM should consider more the state of permafrost and vegetation in northern Asia, which are often overlooked and may have a profound impact on climate change in this region.

Alpine ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau are being threatened by ongoing climate warming and intensified human activities. Ecological time-series obtained from sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) are essential for understanding past ecosystem and biodiversity dynamics on the Tibetan Plateau and their responses to climate change at a high taxonomic resolution. Hitherto only few but promising studies have been published on this topic. The potential and limitations of using sedaDNA on the Tibetan Plateau are not fully understood. Here, we (i) provide updated knowledge of and a brief introduction to the suitable archives, region-specific taphonomy, state-of-the-art methodologies, and research questions of sedaDNA on the Tibetan Plateau; (ii) review published and ongoing sedaDNA studies from the Tibetan Plateau; and (iii) give some recommendations for future sedaDNA study designs. Based on the current knowledge of taphonomy, we infer that deep glacial lakes with freshwater and high clay sediment input, such as those from the southern and southeastern Tibetan Plateau, may have a high potential for sedaDNA studies. Metabarcoding (for microorganisms and plants), metagenomics (for ecosystems), and hybridization capture (for prehistoric humans) are three primary sedaDNA approaches which have been successfully applied on the Tibetan Plateau, but their power is still limited by several technical issues, such as PCR bias and incompleteness of taxonomic reference databases. Setting up high-quality and open-access regional taxonomic reference databases for the Tibetan Plateau should be given priority in the future. To conclude, the archival, taphonomic, and methodological conditions of the Tibetan Plateau are favorable for performing sedaDNA studies. More research should be encouraged to address questions about long-term ecological dynamics at ecosystem scale and to bring the paleoecology of the Tibetan Plateau into a new era.