Responses of vegetation to climatic variations in the desert region of northern China

Zhu, Yanming; Zhang, Jutao; Zhang, Yuqing; Qin, Shugao; Shao, Yanying; Gao, Yan

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2018.12.007

Cited by 81 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…The right afforestation technique should therefore be selected by taking into account the local climate and environment. In the past several decades, Chinese practices have contributed to progress towards ecological restoration in Northern China (Chen et al, ; Zhu et al, ), and the experience gained there will be beneficial to help other countries facing similar threats of desertification.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Vegetation restoration in Northern China: A contrasted picture

et al. 2019

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China started a long‐term effort to mitigate desertification and ensure the sustainability of its environment by implementing multiple large‐scale national ecological restoration projects since 1978, but their success has been highly debated for a long time. Here, we estimated the change of vegetation fraction cover (VFC) in the Three‐North Shelterbelt Programme (TNSP) region over the past three decades on the basis of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index dataset from the Global Inventory Monitoring and Modeling System. We evaluate the national strategy of vegetation restoration in North China by comparing rainfall patterns, vegetation change, and national ecological restoration programs on the basis of the Global Meteorological Forcing Dataset and the China Forestry Statistical Yearbooks. We find that the western, central, and eastern parts of the TNSP region exhibited a distinct increase in vegetation coverage. The western region had the highest increase of annual precipitation, but this did not result in the highest VFC increase. We infer that ecological restoration activities are the factor leading to the observed increase in VFC in the eastern and central region compared with the western region. The low survival rate of planted trees in the forest of the TNSP region indicates that it is necessary to improve the mode of vegetation restoration to obtain optimal returns and avoid excessive investment. The success of new strategies, for example, natural restoration and quasinatural afforestation are promising as an alternative method. China's experiences in reforestation will be very beneficial for other countries to promote land degradation mitigation and vegetation improvement in the arid and semiarid areas.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Vegetation restoration in Northern China: A contrasted picture

et al. 2019

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“…Previous studies have shown that the climate warming was not occurred only at the global scale, but also in regional scale. Specifically to the arid zone, the implications of environmental changes on regional vegetation is complex due to the spatiotemporal variations in such changes and eco-environmental circumstances [11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change Affected Vegetation Dynamics in the Northern Xinjiang of China: Evaluation by SPEI and NDVI

Luo

Mao

Wen

et al. 2020

Land

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Drought and vegetation dynamics in the northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China (NXC), the centre of Asia with arid climate, were assessed using the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Analyses were performed through the use of Sen's method and Spearman's correlation to investigate variations in the NDVI and the impacts of drought on vegetation from 1998 to 2015. The severity of droughts in the NXC was assessed by the SPEI, which was revealed to increase over the last 60 years at a rate of 0.017 per decade. This indicates that an alleviating tendency of drought intensity occurred in the NXC. Specifically, the spatial pattern of drought intensity increased gradually from the north-western to south-eastern regions. The average yearly NDVI was 0.28 and increased slightly by 0.001 yr −1 (r = 0.94, p = 3.64) between 1998 and 2015. Additionally, the NDVI showed an obviously spatial heterogeneity, with greater values in the west and small values in the east. Significantly, positive correlations between SPEI and NDVI were observed, while drought exerted a five-year lag effect on vegetation.

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“…It should be noted that the rate of climate warming in ACA has been larger than the mean warming rate of the global land area in past decades (Hu, Zhang, Hu, & Tian, 2014), and MAPs in most areas of ACA have increased rapidly (Chen, Huang, Jin, Chen, & Wang, 2011). These changes might increase aridity in some areas, leading to a decline in productivity and even biodiversity (Bellard, Bertelsmeier, Leadley, Thuiller, & Courchamp, 2012; Zhu et al., 2019). To mitigate the impact of rapid climate change on desert ecosystems, it is vital that the development of management interventions, such as ecological restoration projects, and conservation policies, is founded on a comprehensive understanding of the ecological consequences of climate change in ACA (Malhi et al., 2020; Vogt et al., 2011; Zhu et al., 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaf size variations in a dominant desert shrub, Reaumuria soongarica, adapted to heterogeneous environments

Fan

Yan

Chen

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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The climate in arid Central Asia (ACA) has changed rapidly in recent decades, but the ecological consequences of this are far from clear. To predict the impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning, greater attention should be given to the relationships between leaf functional traits and environmental heterogeneity. As a dominant constructive shrub widely distributed in ACA, Reaumuria soongarica provided us with an ideal model to understand how leaf functional traits of desert ecosystems responded to the heterogeneous environments of ACA. Here, to determine the influences of genetic and ecological factors, we characterized species‐wide variations in leaf traits among 30 wild populations of R. soongarica and 16 populations grown in a common garden. We found that the leaf length, width, and leaf length to width ratio (L/W) of the northern lineage were significantly larger than those of other genetic lineages, and principal component analysis based on the in situ environmental factors distinguished the northern lineage from the other lineages studied. With increasing latitude, leaf length, width, and L/W in the wild populations increased significantly. Leaf length and L/W were negatively correlated with altitude, and first increased and then decreased with increasing mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP). Stepwise regression analyses further indicated that leaf length variation was mainly affected by latitude. However, leaf width was uncorrelated with altitude, MAT, or MAP. The common garden trial showed that leaf width variation among the eastern populations was caused by both local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. Our findings suggest that R. soongarica preferentially changes leaf length to adjust leaf size to cope with environmental change. We also reveal phenotypic evidence for ecological speciation of R. soongarica. These results will help us better understand and predict the consequences of climate change for desert ecosystem functioning.

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Responses of vegetation to climatic variations in the desert region of northern China

Cited by 81 publications

References 49 publications

Vegetation restoration in Northern China: A contrasted picture

Vegetation restoration in Northern China: A contrasted picture

Climate Change Affected Vegetation Dynamics in the Northern Xinjiang of China: Evaluation by SPEI and NDVI

Leaf size variations in a dominant desert shrub, Reaumuria soongarica, adapted to heterogeneous environments

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