Increased Vegetation Productivity of Altitudinal Vegetation Belts in the Chinese Tianshan Mountains despite Warming and Drying since the Early 21st Century

• Published in: Forests 2023-11, Vol.14 (11), p.2189
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yong, An, Chengbang, Jiang, Lai, Zheng, Liyuan, Tan, Bo, Lu, Chao, Zhang, Wensheng, Zhang, Yanzhen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 21st century; Altitudes; Arid lands; Arid zones; Aridity; atmospheric drought; Belts; Carbon cycle; Carbon dioxide; Carbon sequestration; Climate change; Climate effects; Climatic data; CO2 fertilization; Coniferous forests; Datasets; Drought; Drying; Environmental aspects; Fertilization; Forests; Fossil fuels; global warming hiatus; Grasslands; Humidity; mountain ecosystem; Mountain regions; Mountainous areas; Mountains; Plant communities; Plant populations; Precipitation; Primary productivity (Biology); Productivity; Rainforests; Regions; Seasons; Temperature; Terrestrial ecosystems; Trends; Vegetation; vegetation carbon flux; Vegetation zones
• ISSN: 1999-4907; 1999-4907
• DOI: 10.3390/f14112189

Gaining a deep understanding of how climate change affects the carbon cycle in dryland vegetation is of utmost importance, as it plays a pivotal role in shaping the overall carbon cycle in global ecosystems. It is currently not clear how plant communities at varying elevations in arid mountainous regions will respond to climate change in terms of their productivity. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of climate change on vegetation productivity in different altitudinal vegetation belts of the Tianshan Mountains between 2000 and 2021, utilizing satellite-derived vegetation productivity and climate data. The findings suggest a notable increase in vegetation productivity across diverse altitudinal vegetation belts. The productivity of vegetation in the coniferous forest and alpine meadow belts displayed a notably higher interannual trend compared to other vegetation belts. Notably, an increase in vegetation productivity was accompanied by warming and drying. The productivity of altitudinal vegetation belts, however, appears to be resilient to current climate trends and was not significantly impacted by the severity of atmospheric drought. The trend of increased vegetation productivity was primarily driven by CO2 fertilization. Our results highlight that the extent of climate change may need to reach a threshold to noticeably affect variations in vegetation productivity in arid mountainous.