Recently, whether drylands of Northwest China(NW) have become wetting has been attracting surging attentions. By comparing the Standard Precipitation Evapotranspiration Indices(SPEI) derived from two different potenti...Recently, whether drylands of Northwest China(NW) have become wetting has been attracting surging attentions. By comparing the Standard Precipitation Evapotranspiration Indices(SPEI) derived from two different potential evapotranspiration estimates, i.e., the Thornthwaite algorithm(SPEI_th) and the Penman-Monteith equation(SPEI_pm), we try to resolve the controversy. The analysis indicated that air temperature has been warming significantly at a rate of 0.4℃ decade^(-1) in the last five decades and the more arid areas are more prone to becoming warmer. Annual precipitation of the entire study area increased insignificantly by 3.6 mm decade^(-1) from 1970 to 2019 but NW presented significantly increasing trends. Further, the SPEI_th and SPEI_pm demonstrated similar wetting-drying-wetting trends(three phases) in China’s drylands during 1970–2019. The common periodical signals in the middle phase were identified both by SPEI_th and SPEI_pm wavelet analysis. Analysis with different temporal intervals can lead to divergent or even opposite results. The attribution analysis revealed that precipitation is the main climatic factor driving the drought trend transition. This study hints that the wetting trend’s direction and magnitude hinge on the targeted temporal periods and regions.展开更多
Relatively coordinated development among cities can typically promote the integration of the whole urban agglomeration,while urbanization of land has been found important to economic development in developing countrie...Relatively coordinated development among cities can typically promote the integration of the whole urban agglomeration,while urbanization of land has been found important to economic development in developing countries.Numerous studies have measured the urban land expansion in urban agglomerations.However,urban land spatial inequality under a specific spatial structure remains poorly understood.Here,we combined theβ-convergence model and the core-periphery structure to explore the dynamic changes in urban land spatial inequality in urban agglomerations.The Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration(YRDUA)in China was selected as the study area.Indicators of urban land have been applied in conjunction with a modified conditionalβ-convergence model,while the existence of the core-periphery structure was tested by analyzing coefficients of the control variable.The results show that although the spatial inequality of urban land area had decreased during 2000–2020,the whole YRDUA had still shown an obvious core-periphery structure.Compared with urban land area,the spatial inequality of urban land economic density and population density had decreased more rapidly,and the core-periphery structure was less obvious.Our findings can help to improve our current understanding of urban agglomeration and serve as a scientific reference for the coordinated development of urban agglomerations.展开更多
Environmental and Geo-spatial factors have long been considered as crucial determinants of species composition and distributions. However,quantifying the relative contributions of these factors for the alpine ecosyste...Environmental and Geo-spatial factors have long been considered as crucial determinants of species composition and distributions. However,quantifying the relative contributions of these factors for the alpine ecosystems is lacking. The Tibetan Plateau has a unique ecological environment and vegetation types. Our objectives are to quantify the spatial distributions of plant communities on the Northern Tibetan Alpine grasslands and to explore the relationships between vegetation composition,Geo-spatial factors and environmental factors. We established 63 field plots along a 1200-km gradient on the Northern Tibetan Plateau Alpine Grassland and employed the two-way indicator species analysis（TWINSPAN） and the detrended canonical correspondence analysis（DCCA）. Fourteen communities of alpine grassland were identifiable along the transect and consisted of three vegetation types： Alpine meadow,Alpine steppe,and desert steppe. Vegetation composition and spatial distribution appeared to be largely determined by mean annual precipitation and less influenced by temperature. A large fraction（73.5%） of the variation in vegetation distribution was explained by environmental variables along this transect,somewhat less by Geo-spatial factors（56.3%）. The environmental and Geo-spatial factors explained 29.6% and 12.3% of the total variation,respectively,while their interaction explained 43.9%. Our findings provide strong empirical evidence for explaining biological and environmental synergetic relationships in Northern Tibet.展开更多
Alpine swamp meadows on the Tibetan Plateau,with the highest soil organic carbon content across the globe,are extremely vulnerable to climate change.To accurately and continually quantify the gross primary production...Alpine swamp meadows on the Tibetan Plateau,with the highest soil organic carbon content across the globe,are extremely vulnerable to climate change.To accurately and continually quantify the gross primary production（GPP） is critical for understanding the dynamics of carbon cycles from site-scale to global scale.Eddy covariance technique（EC） provides the best approach to measure the site-specific carbon flux,while satellite-based models can estimate GPP from local,small scale sites to regional and global scales.However,the suitability of most satellite-based models for alpine swamp meadow is unknown.Here we tested the performance of four widely-used models,the MOD17 algorithm（MOD）,the vegetation photosynthesis model（VPM）,the photosynthetic capacity model（PCM）,and the alpine vegetation model（AVM）,in providing GPP estimations for a typical alpine swamp meadow as compared to the GPP estimations provided by EC-derived GPP.Our results indicated that all these models provided good descriptions of the intra-annual GPP patterns（R〉20.89,P〈0.0001）,but hardly agreed with the inter-annual GPP trends.VPM strongly underestimated the GPP of alpine swamp meadow,only accounting for 54.0% of GPP_EC.However,the other three satellite-based GPP models could serve as alternative tools for tower-based GPP observation.GPP estimated from AVM captured 94.5% of daily GPP_EC with the lowest average RMSE of 1.47 g C m^（-2）.PCM slightly overestimated GPP by 12.0% while MODR slightly underestimated by 8.1% GPP compared to the daily GPP_EC.Our results suggested that GPP estimations for this alpine swamp meadow using AVM were superior to GPP estimations using the other relatively complex models.展开更多
Climate change and forage-intake are important components of livestock population systems,but our knowledge about the effects of changes in these properties on livestock is limited,particularly on the Northern Tibetan...Climate change and forage-intake are important components of livestock population systems,but our knowledge about the effects of changes in these properties on livestock is limited,particularly on the Northern Tibetan Plateau.Based on corresponding independent models（CASA and TEM）,a human-induced NPP（NPPH） value and forage-intake threshold were obtained to determine their influences on livestock population fluctuation and regrowth on the plateau.The intake threshold value provided compatible results with livestock population performance.If the forage-intake was greater than the critical value of 1.9（kg DM d^（-1） sheep^（-1））,the livestock population increased;otherwise,the livestock population decreased.It takes four years to transfer a disturbance in primary productivity to the next trophic level.The relationships between livestock population and NPP_H value determined population dynamics via the forage-intake value threshold.Improved knowledge on lag effects will advance our understanding of drivers of climatic changes on livestock population dynamics.展开更多
The nutritional quality of grasslands is closely related to recruitment of young and population dynamics of livestock and wild herbivores. However, the response of nutritional quality to climate warming has not been f...The nutritional quality of grasslands is closely related to recruitment of young and population dynamics of livestock and wild herbivores. However, the response of nutritional quality to climate warming has not been fully understood in the alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau, especially in the Northern Tibet. Here, we investigated the effect of experimental warming(beginning in 2008) on nutritional quality in three alpine meadows(site A: 4313 m, B: 4513 m and C: 4693 m) in the Northern Tibet. Crude protein(CP), neutral detergent fiber(NDF), acid detergent fiber(ADF), crude ash(Ash), ether extract(EE) and water-soluble carbohydrate(WSC) were examined in 2018–2019. Experimental warming only increased the content of CP by 27.25%, ADF by 89.93% and NDF by 41.20%, but it decreased the content of Ash by 57.76% in 2019 at site B. The contents of CP and WSC both increased with soil moisture(SM). The content of CP decreased with vapor pressure deficit(VPD). The combined effect of SM and VPD was greater than air temperature(Ta) in controlling the variations of the CP content, ADF content and nutritional quality. Compared to Ta, VPD explained more of the variation in NDF and Ash content. All of these findings suggest that warming effects on nutritional quality may vary with site and year, and water availability may have a stronger effect on the nutritional quality than temperature in the alpine meadow of the Northern Tibet.展开更多
Biologists have considered both winter coldness and temperature seasonality as major determinants of the northern limits of plants and animals in the Northern Hemisphere,which in turn drive the well-known latitudinal ...Biologists have considered both winter coldness and temperature seasonality as major determinants of the northern limits of plants and animals in the Northern Hemisphere,which in turn drive the well-known latitudinal diversity gradient.However,few studies have tested which of the two climate variables is the primary determinant.In this study,we assess whether winter coldness or temperature seasonality is more strongly associated with the northern latitudinal limits of tree species and with tree species richness in North America.Tree species were recorded in each of 1198 quadrats of 110 km×110 km in North America.We used correlation and regression analyses to assess the relationship of the latitude of the northern boundary of each species,and of species richness per quadrat,with winter coldness and temperature seasonality.Species richness was analyzed within 38 longitudinal,i.e.,north-south,bands(each being>1100 km long and 110 km wide).The latitudes of the northern range limits of tree species were three times better correlated with minimum temperatures at those latitudes than with temperature seasonality.On average,minimum temperature and temperature seasonality together explained 81.5%of the variation in the northern range limits of the tree species examined,and minimum temperature uniquely explained six-fold(33.7%versus 5.8%)more of this variation than did temperature seasonality.Correlations of tree species richness with minimum temperatures were stronger than correlations with temperature seasonality for most of the longitudinal bands analyzed.Compared to temperature seasonality,winter coldness is more strongly associated with species distributions at high latitudes,and is likely a more important driver of the latitudinal diversity gradient.展开更多
Understanding climatic effects on cropland water use efficiency at different elevations is imperative for managing agricultural water and production in response to ongoing climate change in climate-sensitive areas wit...Understanding climatic effects on cropland water use efficiency at different elevations is imperative for managing agricultural water and production in response to ongoing climate change in climate-sensitive areas with complex topography, such as southwestern China. We investigated climatic effects on cropland water use efficiency in southwestern China at each 100-m elevation bin during 2001–2017. The maximum water use efficiency was 1.71 gC kg^(–1) H_2O for the 1900–1999 m elevation bin under the growing season temperature and precipitation of 14.58±0.32℃ and 965.40±136.45 mm, respectively. The water use efficiency slopes were dominated by the evapotranspiration slopes at elevations below 1999 m but were controlled by the gross primary productivity slopes at elevations above 2000 m. This difference was caused by the substantial responses of evaporation to climate change at lower elevations and the increased climatic sensitivity of gross primary productivity at higher elevations. In comparison to those at other elevations, croplands at lower elevations were more vulnerable to extreme drought because of the dominant role fluctuating evapotranspiration played in water use efficiency. The findings will improve cropland water management in the study area.展开更多
Elevation dependency amongst climate change signals has been found in major mountain ranges around the world,but the main factors causing this dependency have not been clarified.In this study,four different datasets o...Elevation dependency amongst climate change signals has been found in major mountain ranges around the world,but the main factors causing this dependency have not been clarified.In this study,four different datasets of observation and reanalysis for China were used to examine the elevation dependency of climate change.A lack of consistency was found in dependency between warming magnitude and elevation across the Tibetan Plateau and China.However,a dependency of climate change on water vapor was detected whereby the temperature trend initially increased at low specific humidity,and then decreased as specific humidity increased.At ground level the maximum trend in temperature appeared in the specific humidity range 2.0–3.0 g kg^（-1）.This suggests that water vapor is a mediator of climate change and may be responsible for elevation-dependent climate change.展开更多
基金The Major Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China,No.41991234The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars,No.41725003。
文摘Recently, whether drylands of Northwest China(NW) have become wetting has been attracting surging attentions. By comparing the Standard Precipitation Evapotranspiration Indices(SPEI) derived from two different potential evapotranspiration estimates, i.e., the Thornthwaite algorithm(SPEI_th) and the Penman-Monteith equation(SPEI_pm), we try to resolve the controversy. The analysis indicated that air temperature has been warming significantly at a rate of 0.4℃ decade^(-1) in the last five decades and the more arid areas are more prone to becoming warmer. Annual precipitation of the entire study area increased insignificantly by 3.6 mm decade^(-1) from 1970 to 2019 but NW presented significantly increasing trends. Further, the SPEI_th and SPEI_pm demonstrated similar wetting-drying-wetting trends(three phases) in China’s drylands during 1970–2019. The common periodical signals in the middle phase were identified both by SPEI_th and SPEI_pm wavelet analysis. Analysis with different temporal intervals can lead to divergent or even opposite results. The attribution analysis revealed that precipitation is the main climatic factor driving the drought trend transition. This study hints that the wetting trend’s direction and magnitude hinge on the targeted temporal periods and regions.
基金National Social Science Fund of China,No.20AGL025。
文摘Relatively coordinated development among cities can typically promote the integration of the whole urban agglomeration,while urbanization of land has been found important to economic development in developing countries.Numerous studies have measured the urban land expansion in urban agglomerations.However,urban land spatial inequality under a specific spatial structure remains poorly understood.Here,we combined theβ-convergence model and the core-periphery structure to explore the dynamic changes in urban land spatial inequality in urban agglomerations.The Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration(YRDUA)in China was selected as the study area.Indicators of urban land have been applied in conjunction with a modified conditionalβ-convergence model,while the existence of the core-periphery structure was tested by analyzing coefficients of the control variable.The results show that although the spatial inequality of urban land area had decreased during 2000–2020,the whole YRDUA had still shown an obvious core-periphery structure.Compared with urban land area,the spatial inequality of urban land economic density and population density had decreased more rapidly,and the core-periphery structure was less obvious.Our findings can help to improve our current understanding of urban agglomeration and serve as a scientific reference for the coordinated development of urban agglomerations.
基金National Key Technology Research and Development Program of China(2016YFC0501802,2017YFA0604802)National Natural Science Foundation of China(41571195,41501103)Youth Innovation Team Project of Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling(LENOM2016Q0002)
文摘Environmental and Geo-spatial factors have long been considered as crucial determinants of species composition and distributions. However,quantifying the relative contributions of these factors for the alpine ecosystems is lacking. The Tibetan Plateau has a unique ecological environment and vegetation types. Our objectives are to quantify the spatial distributions of plant communities on the Northern Tibetan Alpine grasslands and to explore the relationships between vegetation composition,Geo-spatial factors and environmental factors. We established 63 field plots along a 1200-km gradient on the Northern Tibetan Plateau Alpine Grassland and employed the two-way indicator species analysis（TWINSPAN） and the detrended canonical correspondence analysis（DCCA）. Fourteen communities of alpine grassland were identifiable along the transect and consisted of three vegetation types： Alpine meadow,Alpine steppe,and desert steppe. Vegetation composition and spatial distribution appeared to be largely determined by mean annual precipitation and less influenced by temperature. A large fraction（73.5%） of the variation in vegetation distribution was explained by environmental variables along this transect,somewhat less by Geo-spatial factors（56.3%）. The environmental and Geo-spatial factors explained 29.6% and 12.3% of the total variation,respectively,while their interaction explained 43.9%. Our findings provide strong empirical evidence for explaining biological and environmental synergetic relationships in Northern Tibet.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(41571042,40603024)
文摘Alpine swamp meadows on the Tibetan Plateau,with the highest soil organic carbon content across the globe,are extremely vulnerable to climate change.To accurately and continually quantify the gross primary production（GPP） is critical for understanding the dynamics of carbon cycles from site-scale to global scale.Eddy covariance technique（EC） provides the best approach to measure the site-specific carbon flux,while satellite-based models can estimate GPP from local,small scale sites to regional and global scales.However,the suitability of most satellite-based models for alpine swamp meadow is unknown.Here we tested the performance of four widely-used models,the MOD17 algorithm（MOD）,the vegetation photosynthesis model（VPM）,the photosynthetic capacity model（PCM）,and the alpine vegetation model（AVM）,in providing GPP estimations for a typical alpine swamp meadow as compared to the GPP estimations provided by EC-derived GPP.Our results indicated that all these models provided good descriptions of the intra-annual GPP patterns（R〉20.89,P〈0.0001）,but hardly agreed with the inter-annual GPP trends.VPM strongly underestimated the GPP of alpine swamp meadow,only accounting for 54.0% of GPP_EC.However,the other three satellite-based GPP models could serve as alternative tools for tower-based GPP observation.GPP estimated from AVM captured 94.5% of daily GPP_EC with the lowest average RMSE of 1.47 g C m^（-2）.PCM slightly overestimated GPP by 12.0% while MODR slightly underestimated by 8.1% GPP compared to the daily GPP_EC.Our results suggested that GPP estimations for this alpine swamp meadow using AVM were superior to GPP estimations using the other relatively complex models.
基金Chinese Academy of Sciences project(XDB03030400)National Basic Research Program of China(2010CB951704)National Sciences Foundation of China(41171044)
文摘Climate change and forage-intake are important components of livestock population systems,but our knowledge about the effects of changes in these properties on livestock is limited,particularly on the Northern Tibetan Plateau.Based on corresponding independent models（CASA and TEM）,a human-induced NPP（NPPH） value and forage-intake threshold were obtained to determine their influences on livestock population fluctuation and regrowth on the plateau.The intake threshold value provided compatible results with livestock population performance.If the forage-intake was greater than the critical value of 1.9（kg DM d^（-1） sheep^（-1））,the livestock population increased;otherwise,the livestock population decreased.It takes four years to transfer a disturbance in primary productivity to the next trophic level.The relationships between livestock population and NPP_H value determined population dynamics via the forage-intake value threshold.Improved knowledge on lag effects will advance our understanding of drivers of climatic changes on livestock population dynamics.
基金The Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2020054)Bingwei Outstanding Young Talents Program of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,Chinese Academy of Sciences (2018RC202)+3 种基金The National Key Research Projects of China (2016YFC0502005,2017YFA0604801)The Second Comprehensive Scientific Investigation of the Tibetan Plateau (2019QZKK0302)The National Natural Science Foundation of China (31600432)Tibet Science and Technology Major Projects of the Pratacultural Industry (XZ201901NA03)。
文摘The nutritional quality of grasslands is closely related to recruitment of young and population dynamics of livestock and wild herbivores. However, the response of nutritional quality to climate warming has not been fully understood in the alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau, especially in the Northern Tibet. Here, we investigated the effect of experimental warming(beginning in 2008) on nutritional quality in three alpine meadows(site A: 4313 m, B: 4513 m and C: 4693 m) in the Northern Tibet. Crude protein(CP), neutral detergent fiber(NDF), acid detergent fiber(ADF), crude ash(Ash), ether extract(EE) and water-soluble carbohydrate(WSC) were examined in 2018–2019. Experimental warming only increased the content of CP by 27.25%, ADF by 89.93% and NDF by 41.20%, but it decreased the content of Ash by 57.76% in 2019 at site B. The contents of CP and WSC both increased with soil moisture(SM). The content of CP decreased with vapor pressure deficit(VPD). The combined effect of SM and VPD was greater than air temperature(Ta) in controlling the variations of the CP content, ADF content and nutritional quality. Compared to Ta, VPD explained more of the variation in NDF and Ash content. All of these findings suggest that warming effects on nutritional quality may vary with site and year, and water availability may have a stronger effect on the nutritional quality than temperature in the alpine meadow of the Northern Tibet.
基金supported by a grant form the National Key Research and Development Program,No.2019YFA0607302。
文摘Biologists have considered both winter coldness and temperature seasonality as major determinants of the northern limits of plants and animals in the Northern Hemisphere,which in turn drive the well-known latitudinal diversity gradient.However,few studies have tested which of the two climate variables is the primary determinant.In this study,we assess whether winter coldness or temperature seasonality is more strongly associated with the northern latitudinal limits of tree species and with tree species richness in North America.Tree species were recorded in each of 1198 quadrats of 110 km×110 km in North America.We used correlation and regression analyses to assess the relationship of the latitude of the northern boundary of each species,and of species richness per quadrat,with winter coldness and temperature seasonality.Species richness was analyzed within 38 longitudinal,i.e.,north-south,bands(each being>1100 km long and 110 km wide).The latitudes of the northern range limits of tree species were three times better correlated with minimum temperatures at those latitudes than with temperature seasonality.On average,minimum temperature and temperature seasonality together explained 81.5%of the variation in the northern range limits of the tree species examined,and minimum temperature uniquely explained six-fold(33.7%versus 5.8%)more of this variation than did temperature seasonality.Correlations of tree species richness with minimum temperatures were stronger than correlations with temperature seasonality for most of the longitudinal bands analyzed.Compared to temperature seasonality,winter coldness is more strongly associated with species distributions at high latitudes,and is likely a more important driver of the latitudinal diversity gradient.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China,No.41501054Scientific Research Foundation of Shandong Technology and Business University,No.BS201735Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,No.QYZDB-SSW-DQC005。
文摘Understanding climatic effects on cropland water use efficiency at different elevations is imperative for managing agricultural water and production in response to ongoing climate change in climate-sensitive areas with complex topography, such as southwestern China. We investigated climatic effects on cropland water use efficiency in southwestern China at each 100-m elevation bin during 2001–2017. The maximum water use efficiency was 1.71 gC kg^(–1) H_2O for the 1900–1999 m elevation bin under the growing season temperature and precipitation of 14.58±0.32℃ and 965.40±136.45 mm, respectively. The water use efficiency slopes were dominated by the evapotranspiration slopes at elevations below 1999 m but were controlled by the gross primary productivity slopes at elevations above 2000 m. This difference was caused by the substantial responses of evaporation to climate change at lower elevations and the increased climatic sensitivity of gross primary productivity at higher elevations. In comparison to those at other elevations, croplands at lower elevations were more vulnerable to extreme drought because of the dominant role fluctuating evapotranspiration played in water use efficiency. The findings will improve cropland water management in the study area.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(41571042,41271067)National Key Research and Development Program(2016YFC0502001)
文摘Elevation dependency amongst climate change signals has been found in major mountain ranges around the world,but the main factors causing this dependency have not been clarified.In this study,four different datasets of observation and reanalysis for China were used to examine the elevation dependency of climate change.A lack of consistency was found in dependency between warming magnitude and elevation across the Tibetan Plateau and China.However,a dependency of climate change on water vapor was detected whereby the temperature trend initially increased at low specific humidity,and then decreased as specific humidity increased.At ground level the maximum trend in temperature appeared in the specific humidity range 2.0–3.0 g kg^（-1）.This suggests that water vapor is a mediator of climate change and may be responsible for elevation-dependent climate change.
