Based on core-top calibration, the TEX86H-derived temperature has been considered as representing subsurface sea temperature (SSST), and the difference between the U37K′-derived sea-surface temperature (SST) and the TEX86H-derived SSST can be used to reflect the depth of thermocline (DOT) in the South China Sea region (Jia et al., 2012). We evaluated the DOT dynamics in late Quaternary records using this approach on paired analysis of samples from core MD05-2896/7 in the southern South China Sea. The reconstructed DOT over the last 180,000 yr (180 ka) displays a shoaling trend in glacial periods, which may be attributed to the strengthened cyclonic gyre by the enhanced East Asian winter monsoon and Walker circulation with prominent La Niña-like state, and vice versa in interglacial periods corresponding to reduced winter monsoon with enhanced El Niño-like state. These upper-water thermal variations testify that enhanced winter monsoon was the direct cause of an uplifted local thermocline during glacial or La Niña-like states with strengthened cyclonic gyre due to positive wind stress curl in the southern South China Sea. Our results provide insights into the relationship between monsoon and ENSO on both glacial and millennial time scales.

In Southeast Asian tropical rainforests, two events, severe droughts associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and general flowering, a type of community-wide mass flowering, occur at irregular, supra-annual intervals. The relationship between these two supra-annual events and patterns of insect population fluctuations has yet to be clearly elucidated. Leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) are major herbivores and flower-visitors of canopy trees, affecting their growth and reproduction and, in turn, affected by tree phenology; but their population fluctuations in the Southeast Asian tropics have not been extensively investigated. We examined population fluctuation patterns of the 34 most dominant chrysomelid species in relation to the two supra-annual events by conducting monthly light-trapping over seven years in a lowland dipterocarp forest in Borneo. Our results showed large community variation in population fluctuation patterns and a supra-annual (between-year) variation in abundance for most of the dominant chrysomelids that was significantly larger than the annual (within-year) variation. Specifically, in response to a severe drought in 1998, chrysomelid species exhibited different population responses. These results show that population fluctuations of individual species, rather than the entire assemblage, must be analyzed to determine the effects of changes in environmental conditions on the structure of insect assemblages in the tropics, especially in regions where supra-annual environmental changes are relatively more important than seasonal changes.