Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability

Taylor Smith; Niklas Boers

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36207-7

journal article Open Access Jan 30, 2023

Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability

Taylor Smith

Niklas Boers

Nature Communications Vol. 14 No. 1 · Springer Science and Business Media LLC

View at Publisher Save 10.1038/s41467-023-36207-7

Abstract

AbstractQuantifying 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.

Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References

56

[1]

Verbesselt, J. et al. Remotely sensed resilience of tropical forests. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 1028–1031 (2016). 10.1038/nclimate3108

[2]

Lovejoy, T. E. & Nobre, C. Amazon tipping point. Sci. Adv. 4, 1–2 (2018).

[3]

Hubau, W. et al. Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical forests. Nature 579, 80–87 (2020). 10.1038/s41586-020-2035-0

[4]

Smith, T., Traxl, D. & Boers, N. Empirical evidence for recent global shifts in vegetation resilience. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 477–484 (2022). 10.1038/s41558-022-01352-2

[5]

Boulton, C. A., Lenton, T. M. & Boers, N. Pronounced loss of amazon rainforest resilience since the early 2000s. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 271–278 (2022). 10.1038/s41558-022-01287-8

[6]

Global Resilience of Tropical Forest and Savanna to Critical Transitions

Marina Hirota, Milena Holmgren, Egbert H. van Nes et al.

Science 2011 10.1126/science.1210657

[7]

Ciemer, C. et al. Higher resilience to climatic disturbances in tropical vegetation exposed to more variable rainfall. Nat. Geosci. 12, 174–179 (2019). 10.1038/s41561-019-0312-z

[8]

Boers, N., Marwan, N. & Barbosa, H. M. J. A deforestation-induced tipping point for the South American monsoon system. Sci. Rep. 49, 41489 (2017).

[9]

Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. Ipcc, 2021: Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. in Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

[10]

Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

Simon L. Lewis, Charlotte E. Wheeler, Edward T. A. Mitchard et al.

Nature 2019 10.1038/d41586-019-01026-8

[11]

Gatti, L. V. et al. Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change. Nature 595, 388–393 (2021). 10.1038/s41586-021-03629-6

[12]

Lasslop, G., Brovkin, V., Reick, C. H., Bathiany, S. & Kloster, S. Multiple stable states of tree cover in a global land surface model due to a fire-vegetation feedback. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 6324–6331 (2016). 10.1002/2016gl069365

[13]

Abis, B. & Brovkin, V. Environmental conditions for alternative tree-cover states in high latitudes. Biogeosciences 14, 511–527 (2017). 10.5194/bg-14-511-2017

[14]

Feng, Y. et al. Reduced resilience of terrestrial ecosystems locally is not reflected on a global scale. Commun. Earth Environ. 2, 1–11 (2021). 10.1038/s43247-021-00163-1

[15]

Emerging signals of declining forest resilience under climate change

Giovanni Forzieri, Vasilis Dakos, Nate G. McDowell et al.

Nature 10.1038/s41586-022-04959-9

[16]

Peterson, G., Allen, C. R. & Holling, C. S. Ecological resilience, biodiversity, and scale. Ecosystems 1, 6–18 (1998). 10.1007/s100219900002

[17]

Folke, C. et al. Regime shifts, resilience, in ecosystem management. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 35, 557–581 (2004). 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.35.021103.105711

[18]

Carpenter, S. R. & Brock, W. A. Rising variance: a leading indicator of ecological transition. Ecol. Lett. 9, 311–8 (2006). 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00877.x

[19]

Sensitivity of global terrestrial ecosystems to climate variability

Alistair W. R. Seddon, Marc Macias-Fauria, Peter R. Long et al.

Nature 2016 10.1038/nature16986

[20]

van der Bolt, B., van Nes, E. H., Bathiany, S., Vollebregt, M. E. & Scheffer, M. Climate reddening increases the chance of critical transitions. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 478–484 (2018). 10.1038/s41558-018-0160-7

[21]

Liu, Y., Kumar, M., Katul, G. G. & Porporato, A. Reduced resilience as an early warning signal of forest mortality. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 880–885 (2019). 10.1038/s41558-019-0583-9

[22]

Van Nes, E. H. & Scheffer, M. Slow recovery from perturbations as a generic indicator of a nearby catastrophic shift. Am. Nat. 169, 738–747 (2007). 10.1086/516845

[23]

Moesinger, L. et al. The global long-term microwave vegetation optical depth climate archive (vodca). Earth Syst. Sci. Data 12, 177–196 (2020). 10.5194/essd-12-177-2020

[24]

Pinzon, J. E. & Tucker, C. J. A non-stationary 1981–2012 avhrr ndvi3g time series. Remote Sens. 6, 6929–6960 (2014). 10.3390/rs6086929

[25]

Didan, K. Mod13c1 modis/terra vegetation indices 16-day l3 global 0.05deg cmg v006. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13C1.006 (2015). 10.5067/modis/mod13c1.006

[26]

Smith, T. et al. Reliability of resilience estimation based on multi-instrument time series. Earth Syst. Dyn. Discuss. 2022, 1–14 (2022).

[27]

Good, S. P., Moore, G. W. & Miralles, D. G. A mesic maximum in biological water use demarcates biome sensitivity to aridity shifts. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 1, 1883–1888 (2017). 10.1038/s41559-017-0371-8

[28]

Anomalous collapses of Nares Strait ice arches leads to enhanced export of Arctic sea ice

G. W. K. Moore, S. E. L. Howell, M. Brady et al.

Nature Communications 2021 10.1038/s41467-020-20314-w

[29]

Xu, X., Yang, D. & Sivapalan, M. Assessing the impact of climate variability on catchment water balance and vegetation cover. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16, 43–58 (2012). 10.5194/hess-16-43-2012

[30]

Liu, L., Zhang, Y., Wu, S., Li, S. & Qin, D. Water memory effects and their impacts on global vegetation productivity and resilience. Sci. Rep. 8, 1–9 (2018).

[31]

Trabucco, A. & Zomer, R. Global Aridity Index and Potential Evapotranspiration (ET0) Climate Database v2. figshare. Fileset. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7504448.v3 (2019). 10.6084/m9.figshare.7504448.v3

[32]

Walsh, R. & Lawler, D. Rainfall seasonality: description, spatial patterns and change through time. Weather 36, 201–208 (1981). 10.1002/j.1477-8696.1981.tb05400.x

[33]

Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate. Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate Data Store (CDS), https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/home (2017).

[34]

Volaire, F. A unified framework of plant adaptive strategies to drought: crossing scales and disciplines. Glob. Change Biol. 24, 2929–2938 (2018). 10.1111/gcb.14062

[35]

Huang, K. & Xia, J. High ecosystem stability of evergreen broadleaf forests under severe droughts. Glob. Change Biol. 25, 3494–3503 (2019). 10.1111/gcb.14748

[36]

Hereford, R., Webb, R. & Longpré, C. Precipitation history and ecosystem response to multidecadal precipitation variability in the mojave desert region, 1893–2001. J. Arid Environ. 67, 13–34 (2006). 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2006.09.019

[37]

Nicotra, A. B. et al. Plant phenotypic plasticity in a changing climate. Trends Plant Sci. 15, 684–692 (2010). 10.1016/j.tplants.2010.09.008

[38]

Pokhrel, Y. et al. Global terrestrial water storage and drought severity under climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 226–233 (2021). 10.1038/s41558-020-00972-w

[39]

Traxl, D., Boers, N., Rheinwalt, A. & Bookhagen, B. The role of cyclonic activity in tropical temperature-rainfall scaling. Nat. Commun. 12, 6732 (2021). 10.1038/s41467-021-27111-z

[40]

Lehmann, J., Mempel, F. & Coumou, D. Increased occurrence of record-wet and record-dry months reflect changes in mean rainfall. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 13–468 (2018).

[41]

Land–atmospheric feedbacks during droughts and heatwaves: state of the science and current challenges

Diego Miralles, Pierre Gentine, Sonia I. Seneviratne et al.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2019 10.1111/nyas.13912

[42]

Hulme, M. & Kelly, M. Exploring the links between desertification and climate change. Environ. Sci. Policy Sustain. Dev. 35, 4–45 (1993). 10.1080/00139157.1993.9929106

[43]

Chen, J. et al. A simple method for reconstructing a high-quality ndvi time-series data set based on the savitzky–golay filter. Remote Sens. Environ. 91, 332–344 (2004). 10.1016/j.rse.2004.03.014

[44]

Cleveland, R. B., Cleveland, W. S., McRae, J. E. & Terpenning, I. Stl: A seasonal-trend decomposition procedure based on loess. J. Off. Stat. 6, 3–73 (1990).

[45]

Smith, T. & Boers, N. Global Vegetation Resilience Linked to Water Availability and Variability (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7436669 (2023). 10.5281/zenodo.7436669

[46]

Friedl, M. & Sulla-Menashe, D. MCD12C1 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V006. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12C1.006 (2015). 10.5067/modis/mcd12c1.006

[47]

Gorelick, N. et al. Google earth engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sens. Environ. 202, 18–27 (2017). 10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031

[48]

Rousseau, D.-D. et al. (MIS3 & 2) millennial oscillations in Greenland dust and Eurasian aeolian records - a paleosol perspective. Quat. Sci. Rev. 196, 99–113 (2017). 10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.05.020

[49]

Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S. R., Dakos, V. & van Nes, E. H. Generic indicators of ecological resilience: inferring the chance of a critical transition. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 46, 145–167 (2015). 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054242

[50]

Slowing down as an early warning signal for abrupt climate change

Vasilis Dakos, Marten Scheffer, Egbert H. van Nes et al.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2008 10.1073/pnas.0802430105

Showing 50 of 56 references

Cited By

199

Quantifying ecosystem resilience and recovery after landslides: earth observation-based mapping of post-disturbance vegetation recovery using Newton’s law of cooling

Mohammad Adil Aman, Hone-Jay Chu · 2026

Natural Hazards

Context-dependent forest carbon storage: A shift in dominance from structural complexity to large-sized trees across disturbance gradients

Zeyuan Li, Wenjing Fang · 2026

Forest Ecology and Management

Pasture resilience: phenological patterns and critical thresholds in the face of climate change

Maria Espírito Santo, Adriana Príncipe · 2026

Journal of Environmental Management

Continuous Abrupt Vegetation Shifts in the Global Terrestrial Ecosystem

Maohong Wei, Shengpeng Li · 2025

Ecology Letters

Woody encroachment: social–ecological impacts and sustainable management

Jingyi Ding, David J. Eldridge · 2024

Biological Reviews

Ecological and vegetation responses in a humid region in southern China during a historic drought

Ting Yang, Jiasheng Qin · 2024

Journal of Environmental Management

Ecosystem Resilience Monitoring and Early Warning Using Earth Observation Data: Challenges and Outlook

Sebastian Bathiany, Robbin Bastiaansen · 2024

Surveys in Geophysics

Evaluating the hydrological function of vegetation restoration in fragile karst area: Insights from the continuous surface and subsurface runoff monitoring

Jun Zhang, Zhongyun Wang · 2023

Soil and Tillage Research

Metrics

199

Citations

56

References

Details

Published: Jan 30, 2023
Vol/Issue: 14(1)
License: View

Authors

Cite This Article

Taylor Smith, Niklas Boers (2023). Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability. Nature Communications, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36207-7

Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability

You May Also Like