Greater increases in China's dryland ecosystem vulnerability in drier conditions than in wetter conditions

Ying, Yu; Liu, Yanxu; Wang, Yijia; Fu, Bojie

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112689

Cited by 36 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These characteristics make drylands highly vulnerable to climate and environmental changes ( Maestre et al, 2012 ). For example, increasing aridity may cause changes in plant communities shifting from a high diversity of herbs to a few shrubs ( Yao et al, 2021 ), as well as decrease plant functional diversity (e.g., Nunes et al, 2017 ) and increase FR (e.g., Le Bagousse-Pinguet et al, 2019 ). Additionally, global dryland areas are expected to expand due to climate change ( Koutroulis, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We hypothesized that complementary diversity metrics will respond differently to aridity in this tropical dry forest, namely that with increasing aridity we will find: (i) a decrease in species richness, only those highly adapted to drought remaining (e.g., Yao et al, 2021 ); (ii) a decrease in functional diversity due to environmental filtering (e.g., Nunes et al, 2017 ); and (iii) an increase in FR between species sharing the same drought-adapted traits (e.g., Le Bagousse-Pinguet et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

How Do Taxonomic and Functional Diversity Metrics Change Along an Aridity Gradient in a Tropical Dry Forest?

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ecological indicators based on biodiversity metrics are valuable and cost-effective tools to quantify, track and understand the effects of climate change on ecosystems. Studying changes in these indicators along climatic gradients in space is a common approach to infer about potential impacts of climate change over time, overcoming the limitations of lack of sufficiently long time-series data. Here, we studied the response of complementary biodiversity metrics in plants: taxonomic diversity (species richness and Simpson index) and functional diversity (diversity and redundancy) in 113 sampling sites along a spatial aridity gradient (from 0.27 to 0.69 of aridity index-AI) of 700 km in a Tropical dry forest. We found different responses of taxonomic and functional diversity metrics to aridity. Species diversity showed a hump-shaped curve peaking at intermediate levels of aridity between 0.38 and 0.52 AI as an ecotone, probably because it is where most species, from both drier and more mesic environments, still find conditions to co-exist. Functional diversity showed a positive linear relation with increasing aridity, suggesting higher aridity favors drought-adapted species with diverse functional traits. In contrast, redundancy showed a negative linear relation with increasing aridity, indicating that drier sites have few species sharing the same functional traits and resource acquisition strategies. Thus, despite the increase in functional diversity toward drier sites, these communities are less resilient since they are composed of a small number of plant species with unique functions, increasing the chances that the loss of one of such “key species” could lead to the loss of key ecosystem functions. These findings show that the integration of complementary taxonomic and functional diversity metrics, beyond the individual response of each one, is essential for reliably tracking the impacts of climate change on ecosystems. This work also provides support to the use of these biodiversity metrics as ecological indicators of the potential impact of climate change on drylands over time.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Taxonomic and Functional Diversity Metrics Change Along an Aridity Gradient in a Tropical Dry Forest?

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These results contribute to the discussion about the complexity of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in grasslands and annual, interannual, seasonal, and previous-year precipitation variability as reported from Inner Mongolia and North America shortgrass steppe [96,[102][103][104][105][106][107]. There is a stronger spatial gradient of the sensitivity to and the relationship between precipitation and maximum temperature in desert steppe vegetation than in the subhumid forest zones [106,108,109]. This could highlight the anthropogenically induced origin of local desertification processes through grazing activity after the growing season, which amplified the vulnerability and decreased the resilience to global climate change of Inner Mongolia's grassland and steppe vegetation [109,110].…”

Section: Vegetation Response To Anthropogenic Surface Transformationmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…There is a stronger spatial gradient of the sensitivity to and the relationship between precipitation and maximum temperature in desert steppe vegetation than in the subhumid forest zones [106,108,109]. This could highlight the anthropogenically induced origin of local desertification processes through grazing activity after the growing season, which amplified the vulnerability and decreased the resilience to global climate change of Inner Mongolia's grassland and steppe vegetation [109,110]. Grazing activity in Inner Mongolia's grasslands temporally peaks from July to September, when plant growth terminates [98].…”

Section: Vegetation Response To Anthropogenic Surface Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Documentary Evidence of 17th Century Landcover and Climate Change in Northern China and Mongolia Compared to Modern Spectral Greening Trends

Kempf

2022

Land

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fighting land degradation of semi-arid and climate-sensitive grasslands are among the most urgent tasks of current eco-political agenda. Particularly, northern China and Mongolia are prone to climate-induced surface transformations, which were reinforced by the heavily increased numbers of livestock during the 20th century. Extensive overgrazing and resource exploitation amplified regional climate change effects and triggered intensified land degradation that forced policy-driven interventions to prevent desertification. In the past, however, the regions have been subject to continuous shifts in environmental and socio-cultural and political conditions, which makes it particularly difficult to distinguish into regional anthropogenic impact and global climate change effects. This article presents analyses of historical written sources, palaeoenvironmental data, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) temporal series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to compare landcover change during the Little Ice Age (LIA) and current spectral greening trends over the period 2001–2020. Results show that decreasing precipitation and temperature records triggered increased land degradation during the late 17th century in the transition zone from northern China and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to Mongolia. From current climate change perspectives, modern vegetation shows enhanced physical vegetation response related to an increase in precipitation (Ptotal) and temperature (T). Vegetation response is strongly related to Ptotal and T and an increase in physical plant condition indicates local to regional grassland recovery compared to the past 20-year average.

show abstract

“…The agro‐pastoral ecotone in northern China (APENC) is one of the four largest agro‐pastoral ecotones in the world (Zhao et al, 2002) and is located in the northern drylands of China (Li et al, 2021). Because of poor socioeconomic conditions (Li, Yang, et al, 2018; Yang, Wang, et al, 2020), over‐grazing and excessive agricultural activities have led to the degradation of vegetation and extensive desertification, while frequent natural disasters such as drought and sand storms have further led the APENC to become the most sensitive but lowest resilience area in drylands of China (Xu et al, 2021; Yao, Liu, Wang, & Fu, 2021). To mitigate these social‐ecological problems, the APENC has become the key implementation area for a number of large‐scale ERPs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing rural livelihood activities may reduce the effectiveness of ecological restoration projects

Dang

et al. 2022

Land Degrad Dev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding the mechanisms of ecological restoration project (ERP) effectiveness is essential for designing, implementing, and sustainably managing ERPs. It is worth noting that ERPs and parallel policies always lead to an interplay between socioeconomic systems and the ecosystem, and such processes can also have a significant impact on ERP effectiveness in addition to local environmental conditions. However, few studies have focused on this mechanism. Here, the agro‐pastoral ecotone in northern China, which is a key area containing several national ERPs, was used to analyze the above problem from the perspective of rural livelihood activities. Specifically, we identified changes in rural livelihood activities in the context of ERPs and analyzed the impact of changing activities' feedback effect on ERP effectiveness. The results showed that in addition to the afforestation and local environmental factors, changing rural livelihood activities significantly affected the ERP effectiveness through the direct or indirect pathway. Based on our results, we suggest policymakers need an integrated and systemic perspective and focus on the dynamic changes in rural livelihood activities in the context of ERPs and parallel policies. Our study helps to elucidate the complex mechanisms of ERP effectiveness with a social‐ecological perspective, thereby providing new insights and a theoretical basis for improving ERP effectiveness in China and around the world.

show abstract

Greater increases in China's dryland ecosystem vulnerability in drier conditions than in wetter conditions

Cited by 36 publications

References 81 publications

How Do Taxonomic and Functional Diversity Metrics Change Along an Aridity Gradient in a Tropical Dry Forest?

How Do Taxonomic and Functional Diversity Metrics Change Along an Aridity Gradient in a Tropical Dry Forest?

Documentary Evidence of 17th Century Landcover and Climate Change in Northern China and Mongolia Compared to Modern Spectral Greening Trends

Changing rural livelihood activities may reduce the effectiveness of ecological restoration projects

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About