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Tooth enamel of mammalian fossils can efficiently preserve the original carbon isotopic composition when they lived. The ungulate fossils, especially equids in the early Early Pleistocene Bajiazui fauna from Qingyang, Gansu are studied. According to the enriched relation of carbon isotopes between mammalian tooth enamel and grass diets, the fractions of C-3 and C-4 plants in this region at that time are reconstructed, which indicates that C-3 grass occupied a dominant position. Because C-3 grass adapts itself to cold and damp climates, our analytic results show that the time of the Bajiazui fauna was in a critical state between a glacial stage beginning and a summer monsoon retreat, and it was a refection to the turning cold event of the global climate at the beginning of the Quaternary.

Stable carbon isotopes of C3 and C4 plants have completely distinct δ13C values respectively. Carbonate in tooth enamel of herbivorous mammals is significantly and regularly enriched in 13C compared to source carbon. As a result, we can reconstruct distributions of C3 and C4 plants in geological history based on carbon isotopes of mammalian tooth enamel. Carbon isotopes of 70 mammalian tooth enamel samples from 11 Quaternary localities in northern China are analyzed. This analysis indicates that C3 plants were dominant in the terrestrial ecosystem of northern China during the Quaternary, which is completely different from Pakistan with relatively close latitudes where C4 plants were absolutely dominant. The great difference was caused by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. A simulation implied that a marked temperature decrease would happen in the north side of the Tibetan Plateau, but a temperature increase in the south side. The warming condition caused the transition from C3 to C4 plants in Pakistan situated in the south side of this plateau. In the north side, on the contrary, the cooling condition restrained the distribution of C4 plants. As a result, C3 plants have been dominant in northern China until now.