Spatial Heterogeneity of Vegetation Resilience Changes to Different Drought Types
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AbstractResilience is a fundamental concept for vegetation health. The increasing drought frequency and severity may pose severe threat to vegetation resilience. However, it is still not clear how vegetation resilience is evolving in response to climate change in pivotal biographical zones. Here, we examined the resilience changes in terms of leaf area index (LAI, an indicator of canopy structure) and gross primary productivity (GPP, an indicator of carbon uptake) in responding to the Standardized PrecipitationEvapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) over China's Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains. Linking remote sensing variables and tree ring width allows the upscaling of plotbased vegetation growth information. We further explored potential explanatory factors associated with the heterogeneous spatial distributions of resilience changes. Results revealed that the resilience of GPP weakened more than LAI in response to drought, suggesting that compared to LAI, productivity requires more time to recover to the predrought levels. Regionally, the change of vegetation resilience on the Loess Plateau and in highaltitude areas was highly susceptible to SPEI and VPD, respectively. The observed spatial heterogeneity in resilience changes was mainly attributed by climate zone, water deficit, and their interactions. Our findings provide direct and empirical evidence that the vegetation in the Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains is gradually losing resilience. The results indicate that sustained ecosystem water deficit and atmospheric dryness will continue to threaten vegetation survival and terrestrial ecosystem service.
