About the Authors

Litong Chen

Affiliation Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, Qinghai, People’s Republic of China

Dan F. B. Flynn

Affiliation Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, Qinghai, People’s Republic of China

Xin Jing

Affiliation Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Peter Kühn

Affiliation Department of Geosciences, Physical Geography and Soil Science, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

Thomas Scholten

Affiliation Department of Geosciences, Physical Geography and Soil Science, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

Jin-Sheng He

jshe@pku.edu.cn

Affiliations Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, Qinghai, People’s Republic of China, Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JSH LC. Performed the experiments: LC XJ. Analyzed the data: LC. Wrote the paper: LC DF PK TS JSH.