Widespread spring phenology effects on drought recovery of Northern Hemisphere ecosystems

Yang, Li; Zhang, Wen; Schwalm, Christopher R.; Gentine, Pierre; Smith, William K.; Ciais, Philippe; Kimball, J. S.; Gazol, Antonio; Kannenberg, Steven A.; Chen, Anping; Piao, Shilong; Liu, Hongyan; Chen, Deliang; Wu, Xiuchen

doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01584-2

Cited by 60 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Similar needs exist for other inferred mediators of ecosystem responses to drought, including a host of biotic, edaphic and climatic modifiers (e.g. Costa et al., 2023; Cusack et al., 2023; Hoover et al., 2014, 2022; Li et al., 2023; Smith et al., 2023).…”

Section: How Can Drought Experiments Be Improved?mentioning

confidence: 90%

“…As noted above, ecosystem responses and sensitivity to drought can vary dramatically, and although fewer experiments have focussed on the recovery of ecosystem functioning post‐drought (Luo, Ma, et al., 2023), both large‐scale observations (Jiao et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023; Petrie et al., 2018; Schwalm et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2018) and past experiments suggest that there is quite significant variability in the recovery of ecosystems post‐drought (e.g. Stuart‐Haëntjens et al., 2018).…”

Section: Looking Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Field experiments have enhanced our understanding of drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems—But where do we go from here?

Knapp,

Condon,

Folks

et al. 2023

Functional Ecology

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We review results from field experiments that simulate drought, an ecologically impactful global change threat that is predicted to increase in magnitude, extent, duration and frequency. Our goal is to address, from primarily an ecosystem perspective, the questions ‘What have we learned from drought experiments?’ and ‘Where do we go from here?’. Drought experiments are among the most numerous climate change manipulations and have been deployed across a wide range of biomes, although most are conducted in short‐statured, water‐limited ecosystems. Collectively, these experiments have enabled ecologists to quantify the negative responses to drought that occur for most aspects of ecosystem structure and function. Multiple meta‐analyses of responses have also enabled comparisons of relative effect sizes of drought across hundreds of sites, particularly for carbon cycle metrics. Overall, drought experiments have provided strong evidence that ecosystem sensitivity to drought increases with aridity, but that plant traits associated with aridity are not necessarily predictive of drought resistance. There is also intriguing evidence that as drought magnitude or duration increases to extreme levels, plant strategies may shift from drought tolerance to drought escape/avoidance. We highlight three areas where more drought experiments are needed to advance our understanding. First, because drought is intensifying in multiple ways, experiments are needed that address alterations in drought magnitude versus duration, timing and/or frequency (individually and interactively). Second, drivers of drought may be shifting—from precipitation deficits to rising atmospheric demand for water—and disentangling how ecosystems respond to changes in hydrological ‘supply versus demand’ is critical for understanding drought impacts in the future. Finally, more attention should be focussed on post‐drought recovery periods since legacies of drought can affect ecosystem functioning much longer than the drought itself. We conclude with a call for a fundamental shift in the focus of drought experiments from those designed primarily as ‘response experiments’, quantifying the magnitude of change in ecosystem structure and function, to more ‘mechanistic experiments’—those that explicitly manipulate ecological processes or attributes thought to underpin drought responses. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Section: How Can Drought Experiments Be Improved?mentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Looking Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field experiments have enhanced our understanding of drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems—But where do we go from here?

Knapp,

Condon,

Folks

et al. 2023

Functional Ecology

Self Cite

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“…The partial correlations between GUD and both precipitation and radiation were opposite in sign (figures 7(c) and (e)), indicating that increased preseason precipitation accompanied by heavy cloud cover may mitigate the impacts of reduced radiation on GUD. In addition, the impacts of drought on GUD changes is also considerable, extreme drought events will cause delaying GUD and the alleviation of drought will cause advancing GUD (Li et al 2023), which is shown by negative correlation between SPEI and GUD in Central Asia and Central east Russia and 6% area with advancing GUD predominated by SPEI changes (figures 7(d) and ( 3)).…”

Section: The Role Of Climatementioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-driven land surface phenology advance is overestimated due to ignoring land cover changes

Peng

Chen

Myneni

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Global warming has led to earlier spring green-up dates (GUD) in recent decades with significant consequences for global carbon and hydrologic cycles. In addition to changes in climate, land cover change (LCC), including interchanges between vegetation and non-vegetation, and among plants with different functional traits, may also affect GUD. Here, we analyzed how satellite-derived GUD from 1992 to 2020 was impacted by changes in temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, and LCC for the Northern Hemisphere (>30° N). While the climate variables had larger impact overall, variability in GUD was controlled by LCC for 6% of the Northern Hemisphere, with systematically earlier or later changes among transitions between different land cover types. These changes were found mainly along the southeastern coast of the United States, in central-north Europe, and across northeastern China. We further showed that climate change attribution of earlier GUD during 1992–2020 was overestimated by 3.3 days when the impact of LCC was ignored. Our results deepen the understanding of how LCC impacts GUD variability and enables scientists to more accurately evaluate the impact of climate change on land surface phenology.

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“…Accurately predicting future vegetation growth dynamics and ecosystem evolution is a fundamental scientific challenge within the realm of global change research (Alkama et al., 2022; Y. Zhang et al., 2022). While climate change is a well‐recognized factor, it is equally important to consider the impact of variations in spring phenology on vegetation growth (Y. Li et al., 2023). Therefore, quantifying the relative importance of spring phenology and climate change on vegetation growth can provide a deeper understanding of the driving mechanisms behind vegetation dynamics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While climate change is a well-recognized factor, it is equally important to consider the impact of variations in spring phenology on vegetation growth (Y. Li et al, 2023). Therefore, quantifying the relative importance of spring phenology and climate change on vegetation growth can provide a deeper understanding of the driving mechanisms behind vegetation dynamics.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Spring Phenology on Grassland Growth in Qilian Mountains Across Multiple Spatiotemporal Scales

Sun,

Guan,

et al. 2023

JGR Biogeosciences

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Investigating the differences in grassland growth and its response to advancing spring phenology and climate change across various spatiotemporal scales is crucial for the sustainable development of alpine mountain regions under a warming and wetting climate. This study analyzed the growth dynamics of grassland in the Qilian Mountains from 2000 to 2019 at seasonal and periodic scales. Using partial wavelet coherency and partial correlation analysis, we investigated the influence of temperature, precipitation, and spring phenology on grassland growth. Additionally, we quantified the dominant factors affecting grassland growth in different ecological zones and elevational gradient. The results indicated that the mean normalized difference vegetation index increased at an average rate of 1.1 and 2.8 × 10−3/year for grassland in spring and summer, respectively. Furthermore, the start of vegetation growing season (SOS) has advanced 6.0 days during 2000–2019. The dominant factor for grassland growth shifted from spring temperature to summer precipitation. The importance of SOS ranked second, significantly influencing 29.3% and 25.1% of grassland during spring and summer, respectively. Grasslands situated above 4,000 m above sea level (ASL) were more sensitive to climate change, with SOS exerting the greatest influence within the elevation range of 2,800–4,000 m ASL. Additionally, the phase difference in the time‐frequency scale of partial wavelet coherency revealed a lag effect of approximately 1 month for summer grassland growth to respond to precipitation. These findings can provide a scientific basis for optimizing global vegetation models and predicting the productivity of alpine mountain grasslands.

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Widespread spring phenology effects on drought recovery of Northern Hemisphere ecosystems

Cited by 60 publications

References 68 publications

Field experiments have enhanced our understanding of drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems—But where do we go from here?

Field experiments have enhanced our understanding of drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems—But where do we go from here?

Climate-driven land surface phenology advance is overestimated due to ignoring land cover changes

Effects of Spring Phenology on Grassland Growth in Qilian Mountains Across Multiple Spatiotemporal Scales

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