From the journal
A 2025 study compares charred wood from two elevations with a separate peat-core record to trace Changbaishan’s vegetation history. Charcoal from a high-elevation site now in alpine tundra supports an inference of spruce forest before the 946 eruption. The evidence also records a long ecological recovery. Changbaishan’s upper forest varies by slope, while a long-term plot follows forest conditions in Antu.
In the same city · Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture ↗On Changbaishan’s north slope, vegetation shifts with altitude: broad-leaved Korean pine forest gives way to darker conifers, then to Erman’s birch near the upper forest limit and alpine tundra above. The boundary between these communities changes with exposure, snow and wind.
Erman’s birch is part of the mountain’s upper forest belt, where trees face shorter growing seasons and stronger weather. Its position marks a transition between the forest below and open alpine vegetation above.
A 2025 study compares charred wood from two elevations with phytoliths from a separate peat-core record to reconstruct Changbaishan’s vegetation history. The report describes the high-elevation sample site as alpine tundra today. Charcoal from that site supports the authors’ inference that spruce forest grew there before the 946 eruption. The study also considers charcoal evidence from another elevation, while the peat-core phytoliths provide a separate record of past vegetation.
The evidence points to vegetation change over a long period after the eruption. The report describes these differences as part of ecological recovery over a millennium, whose effects remained visible in forest structure. It presents the eruption’s lasting ecological effects alongside climate change, rather than attributing the observed pattern to recent warming alone.
Erman’s birch is not confined to Changbaishan: a Chinese Academy of Sciences account also places it in eastern Russia, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. At Changbaishan, the account describes the species in an upper forest belt shaped by wind and snow.
The Changbaishan broad-leaved Korean pine forest observation site in Antu County was established in 1998. Its permanent plot records water, soil and biological dynamics in an old-growth forest. Korean pine rises above maple, Tilia, Manchurian ash and Mongolian oak; shrubs and herbs form lower layers closer to the forest floor.
Repeated observations of the same plot let researchers compare changes in vegetation, soil and water over time. The long record complements charcoal and peat-core evidence of past vegetation and recovery after the 946 eruption. Together, these records connect preserved plant traces with the long-term observation of a living forest community in Antu.