Miocene Tropical Forests in South China Shaped by Combined Asian Monsoons

The Miocene epoch witnessed the emergence of modern biomes and biodiversity hotspots. Understanding its history in South China is crucial for informing conservation under modern climate change, yet quantitative constraints on the evolution of climate and vegetation from the tropical–subtropical transition zone remain scarce. Here, we present the first quantitative Miocene paleoclimatic and paleoecological reconstructions based on an integrated analysis of leaf-based proxies applied to exceptionally preserved and highly diverse dicotyledonous leaf megafossils from the Erzitang Formation, Guiping Basin, Guangxi. Results indicate a mean annual temperature of 22.3 °C and mean annual precipitation of 1991 mm, with a monsoon intensity index higher than present, indicating a humid monsoonal climate regime. Vegetation analysis identifies the Miocene Guiping flora as tropical forest. Rather than a simple forest replacement, South China maintained dynamic tropical forest patches that expanded northward to 23° N under Asian monsoons, forming a mosaic with evergreen broad-leaved forests. Overall, the Miocene Guiping vegetation represents a tropical forest situated in a tropical rainforest to seasonal forest ecotone under a humid monsoonal climate, rather than a per-humid rainforest, underscoring the pivotal role of monsoon evolution in shaping low-latitude forest patterns and providing a deep-time benchmark for predicting vegetation responses to future climate change.