Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability
- Quantifying the resilience of vegetated ecosystems is key to constraining both present-day and future global impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Here we apply both empirical and theoretical resilience metrics to remotely-sensed vegetation data in order to examine the role of water availability and variability in controlling vegetation resilience at the global scale. We find a concise global relationship where vegetation resilience is greater in regions with higher water availability. We also reveal that resilience is lower in regions with more pronounced inter-annual precipitation variability, but find less concise relationships between vegetation resilience and intra-annual precipitation variability. Our results thus imply that the resilience of vegetation responds differently to water deficits at varying time scales. In view of projected increases in precipitation variability, our findings highlight the risk of ecosystem degradation under ongoing climate change. Vegetation dynamics depend on both the amount of precipitationQuantifying the resilience of vegetated ecosystems is key to constraining both present-day and future global impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Here we apply both empirical and theoretical resilience metrics to remotely-sensed vegetation data in order to examine the role of water availability and variability in controlling vegetation resilience at the global scale. We find a concise global relationship where vegetation resilience is greater in regions with higher water availability. We also reveal that resilience is lower in regions with more pronounced inter-annual precipitation variability, but find less concise relationships between vegetation resilience and intra-annual precipitation variability. Our results thus imply that the resilience of vegetation responds differently to water deficits at varying time scales. In view of projected increases in precipitation variability, our findings highlight the risk of ecosystem degradation under ongoing climate change. Vegetation dynamics depend on both the amount of precipitation and its variability over time. Here, the authors show that vegetation resilience is greater where water availability is higher and where precipitation is more stable from year to year.…
Author details: | Taylor SmithORCiDGND, Niklas BoersORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36207-7 |
ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36717585 |
Title of parent work (English): | Nature Communications |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Place of publishing: | London |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2023/01/30 |
Publication year: | 2023 |
Release date: | 2024/07/02 |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | 1 |
Article number: | 498 |
Number of pages: | 11 |
Funding institution: | State of Brandenburg (Germany) through the Ministry of Science and; Education; NEXUS project; BMBF ORYCS project; Universitat Potsdam Remote; Sensing computational cluster; Volkswagen foundation; European Union's; Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [820970]; European Union's; Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie; Sklodowska-Curie grant [956170]; Federal Ministry of Education and; Research [01LS2001A]; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German; Research Foundation) [491466077]; Projekt DEAL; Marie Curie Actions; (MSCA) [956170] Funding Source: Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 50 Naturwissenschaften / 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik |
5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 55 Geowissenschaften, Geologie / 550 Geowissenschaften | |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Grantor: | Publikationsfonds der Universität Potsdam |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Gold Open-Access |
DOAJ gelistet | |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |