Shifts of the Mean Centers of Potential Vegetation Ecosystems under Future Climate Change in Eurasia

Abstract

Climate change dominantly controls the spatial distributions of potential vegetation ecosystems; the shift trends in the mean centers of potential vegetation ecosystems could be used to explain their responses to climate change. In terms of the climate observation data of Eurasia for the period from 1981 to 2010 and the climate scenario data for the period from 2011 to 2100 under the three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios of RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and, RCP8.5, which were released by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), the Holdridge Life Zone (HLZ) ecosystem model was improved to quantitatively classify the potential vegetation types, and the shift model of mean center was adopted to compute the trends in the spatiotemporal shifts of potential vegetation types in Eurasia. The results showed that the mean centers of the major potential vegetation ecosystems would be distributed in the central and southern parts of Eurasia. Under the RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 scenarios, the potential shift distances of the mean centers of the vegetation types under the RCP8.5 scenario would be the largest, and those of the polar/nival area, subpolar/alpine moist tundra, warm temperate dry forest, subtropical moist forest, cool temperate moist forest, cool temperate wet forest, subtropical wet forest, subtropical thorn woodland, warm temperate moist forest and subtropical dry forest would be larger than those in the other potential vegetation types in Eurasia. Moreover, the shift directions of the mean centers of the major potential vegetation types would generally shift northward, and subtropical dry forest, warm temperate moist forest and subpolar/alpine moist tundra would be the most sensitive to change among all vegetation types under the three scenarios for the period from 2011 to 2100.

Dynamic Patterns of the Vertical Distribution of Vegetation in Heihe River Basin since the 1980s

“…The dynamic pattern of vegetation in the different elevation zones of Heihe River Basin is important to consider when explicating the differences of vegetation distribution and their responses to climate change from the gradient perspective [36]. On the basis of the DEM data and the spatial data of vegetation in the 1980s and 2010s, as well as by operating the ArcGIS software, this study classified the vertical distribution into six elevation zones, which considered the horizontal and vertical characteristics of vegetation distribution and climate elements in Heihe River Basin [14,[37][38][39][40]. Among them, oasis farmland and desert zone is located in the area of elevation less than 1700 m, desert steppe zone is distributed in the elevation range from 1700 to 2100 m, dry scrub-grassland zone is distributed in the elevation range from 2100 to 2500 m, mountain forest-steppe zone is located in the elevation range from 2500 to 3300 m, subalpine scrub-meadow zone is distributed in the elevation range from 3300 to 3800 m, and alpine cold desert-meadow zone is located in the area of elevation more than 3800 m.…”

Soil pH and Organic Matter Content Affects European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) Crown Defoliation and Its Impact on Understory Vegetation

“…Global changes in the environment induce novel phenomena that change the distributions of tree species [1,2]. The Fraxinus genus is one of the most visible examples of retreat.…”