Grassland changes and adaptive management on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Wang, Yanfen; Lv, Wangwang; Xue, Kai; Wang, Shiping; Zhang, Lirong; Yan, Guangjian; Zeng, Hong; Xu, Xingliang; Li, Yaoming; Jiang, Lili; Hao, Yanbin; Du, Jianqing; Sun, Jian-Ping; Dorji, Tsechoe; Piao, Shilong; Wang, Changhui; Luo, Caiyun; Zhang, Zhenhua; Chang, Xiaofeng; Zhang, Mingming; Hu, Yigang; Wu, Tonghua; Wang, Jinzhi; Li, Bowen; Liu, Peipei; Zhou, Yang; Wang, A; Dong, Shiyun; Zhang, Xianzhou; Gao, Qingzhu; Zhou, Huakun; Shen, Miaogen; Wilkes, Andreas; Miehe, Georg; Zhao, Xinquan; Niu, Haishan

doi:10.1038/s43017-022-00330-8

Cited by 235 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 149 publications

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“…Increased precipitation and warmer temperature are key factors driving vegetation greening ( Sun and Qin, 2016 ; Chen et al., 2020 ). However, in areas with low and decreasing precipitation, rising temperature can exacerbate drought problems, leading to vegetation browning ( Wang et al., 2022 ). Meanwhile, human activities such as overgrazing and infrastructure construction also have negative impacts on vegetation and soils ( Huang et al., 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greening or browning? The macro variation and drivers of different vegetation types on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2021

et al. 2022

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Vegetation greenness is one of the main indicators to characterize changes in terrestrial ecosystems. China has implemented a few large-scale ecological restoration programs on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) to reverse the trend of ecosystem degradation. Although the effectiveness of these programs is beginning to show, the mechanisms of vegetation degradation under climate change and human activities are still controversial. Existing studies have mostly focused on changes in overall vegetation change, with less attention on the drivers of change in different vegetation types. In this study, earth satellite observation records were used to robustly map changes in vegetation greenness on the QTP from 2000 to 2021. The random forest (RF) algorithm was further used to detect the drivers of greenness browning on the QTP as a whole and in seven different vegetation types. The results show that an overall trend of greening in all seven vegetation types on the QTP over a 21-year period. The area of greening was 46.54×104 km2, and browning was 5.32×104 km2, representing a quarter and 2.86% of the natural vegetation area, respectively. The results of the browning driver analysis show that areas with high altitude, reduced annual precipitation, high intensity of human activity, average annual maximum and average annual minimum precipitation of approximately 500 mm are most susceptible to browning on the QTP. For the seven different vegetation types, their top 6 most important browning drivers and the ranking of drivers differed. DEM and precipitation changes are important drivers of browning for seven vegetation types. These results reflect the latest spatial and temporal dynamics of vegetation on the QTP and highlight the common and characteristic browning drivers of vegetation ecosystems. They provide support for understanding the response of different vegetation to natural and human impacts and for further implementation of site-specific restoration measures.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greening or browning? The macro variation and drivers of different vegetation types on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2021

et al. 2022

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“…Alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain the responses of vegetation cover to warming in the Tibetan Plateau (Liu et al, 2018;Yan et al, 2021). Changes in water availability, for example, may also be important in driving changes in vegetation productivity and phenology given the relatively arid climate of much of the region (Li et al, 2020;Shen et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2022). However, a unified and quantitative framework is still missing, and inevitably introduces uncertainties in the prediction of future vegetation changes and mitigation strategies in this fragile region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimality principles explaining divergent responses of alpine vegetation to environmental change

Zhu

Wang

Harrison

et al. 2022

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Recent increases in vegetation cover, observed over much of the world, reflect increasing CO2 globally and warming in cold areas. However, the strength of the response to both CO2 and warming appears to be declining. Here we examine changes in vegetation cover on the Tibetan Plateau over the past 35 years. Although the climate trends are similar across the Plateau, drier regions have become greener by 0.31&#177;0.14% yr&#8722;1 while wetter regions have become browner by 0.12&#177;0.08% yr&#8211;1. This divergent response is predicted by a universal model of primary production accounting for optimal carbon allocation to leaves, subject to constraint by water availability. Rising CO2 stimulates production in both greening and browning areas; increased precipitation enhances growth in dry regions, but growth is reduced in wetter regions because warming increases below-ground allocation costs. The declining sensitivity of vegetation to climate change reflects a shift from water to energy limitation.&#160;

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“…Alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) accounts for about 62% of the total area of the TP ( Wang et al., 2022 ). These grassland ecosystems provide important ecological services and functions in pastoral production, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, water resource regulation, cultural inheritance, tourism, and recreation etc.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These grassland ecosystems provide important ecological services and functions in pastoral production, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, water resource regulation, cultural inheritance, tourism, and recreation etc. ( Miehe et al., 2019 ; Sun et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2022 ). In the past serval decades, the alpine grassland on the TP has experienced rapid climate change and intensified human activities ( He et al., 2021 ), the regulatory mechanisms and drivers are remained controversial.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Also, the degradation of permafrost has been accelerated as manifested by ground surface subsidence and thaw settlement of permafrost soils ( Mu et al., 2020 ), and the total number of lakes increased from 868 in 1990 to 1207 in 2015, leading to the increase of total water surface area of the lakes at a rate of 383.5 km2 yr-1 ( Sun et al., 2018 ). With the steady increase of human population and domestic livestock number ( Wei et al., 2020 ), overgrazing has become a serious challenge with overstocking rates of 27–89% in the alpine grassland ( Wang et al., 2022 ). Currently, there are approximately 20 million yak and 50 million Tibetan sheep grazing in the alpine grassland, making it one of the regions with high grazing pressure worldwide ( Wang et al., 2020 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Editorial: Patterns, functions, and processes of alpine grassland ecosystems under global change

et al. 2022

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Editorial on the Research Topic:Patterns, functions, and processes of alpine grassland ecosystems under global change Alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) accounts for about 62% of the total area of the TP (Wang et al., 2022). These grassland ecosystems provide important ecological services and functions in pastoral production, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, water resource regulation, cultural inheritance, tourism, and recreation etc. (Miehe et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2022). In the past serval decades, the alpine grassland on the TP has experienced rapid climate change and intensified human activities (He et al., 2021), the regulatory mechanisms and drivers are remained controversial.Climate changes have been evident across the TP since the beginning of the 1970s (Yang et al., 2014). For instance, the mean annual air temperature has increased by about 0.4°C, which is twice that of the global average, however, a decrease in precipitation has been found in many other regions (Mountain Research Initiative EDW Working Group, 2015). Also, the degradation of permafrost has been accelerated as manifested by ground surface subsidence and thaw settlement of permafrost soils (Mu et al., 2020), and the total number of lakes increased from 868 in 1990 to 1207 in 2015, leading to the increase of total water surface area of the lakes at a rate of 383.5 km2 yr-1 (Sun et al., 2018). With the steady increase of human population and domestic livestock number (Wei et al., 2020), overgrazing has become a serious challenge with overstocking rates of 27-89% in the Frontiers in Plant Science frontiersin.org 01

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Grassland changes and adaptive management on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Cited by 235 publications

References 149 publications

Greening or browning? The macro variation and drivers of different vegetation types on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2021

Greening or browning? The macro variation and drivers of different vegetation types on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2021

Optimality principles explaining divergent responses of alpine vegetation to environmental change

Editorial: Patterns, functions, and processes of alpine grassland ecosystems under global change

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