Dataset Information

Recent changes in daily climate extremes in an arid mountain region, a case study in northwestern China's Qilian Mountains.

ABSTRACT: Changes in climate extremes pose far-reaching consequences to ecological processes and hydrologic cycles in alpine ecosystems of the arid mountain regions. Therefore, regional assessments in various climates and mountain regions are needed for understanding the uncertainties of the change trends for extreme climate events. The objective of this study was to assess the spatial distribution and temporal trends of extreme precipitation and temperature events responses to global warming on the arid mountain regions of China. Results found that temperature extremes exhibited a significant warming trend, consistent with global warming. Warming trend in autumn and winter were greater than in spring and summer. Besides, precipitation extremes also exhibited statistically increase trend, such as number of days with heavy precipitation and rain day precipitation, etc. The distribution of the number of rainy days was showed a significant increasing trend in many sites, indicating that the increase of rain day precipitation mainly contributed by the increase of single precipitation event duration and moderate-rain days. The greater increasing trend of extreme climate events mainly existed in higher altitudes. This results lend an evidence to earlier predictions that the climate in northwestern China is changing from cold-dry to warm-wet.

SUBMITTER: Lin P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5440392 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Recent changes in daily climate extremes in an arid mountain region, a case study in northwestern China's Qilian Mountains.

Lin Pengfei P He Zhibin Z Du Jun J Chen Longfei L Zhu Xi X Li Jing J

Scientific reports 20170522 1

Changes in climate extremes pose far-reaching consequences to ecological processes and hydrologic cycles in alpine ecosystems of the arid mountain regions. Therefore, regional assessments in various climates and mountain regions are needed for understanding the uncertainties of the change trends for extreme climate events. The objective of this study was to assess the spatial distribution and temporal trends of extreme precipitation and temperature events responses to global warming on the arid ...[more]

PMID: 28533540

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Project description:Simple Summary Camera-trapping technology has been widely applied to obtain survey data and enhance understanding of animal ecology. Ground-dwelling pheasants with limited distributions and weak dispersal capacity are prone to extinction due to disturbances and climate change in high-altitude mountain areas. The Qilian Mountains form a global biodiversity hotspot for endemic species and contain crucial areas for ecological and biodiversity conservation. The Blue Eared Pheasant (EP) and Blood Pheasant (BP) are indicator species of the environment and currently occur in the Qilian Mountain National Nature Reserve (QMNNR). Understanding their stable coexistence is key for making informed conservation and management actions. They have similar daily activity patterns but their monthly activity patterns are strikingly different. Both BP and EP prefer forest habitats but BP nests in more dense vegetation cover. Ninety-one percent of BP distribution falls within EP distribution in the QMNNR. Their areas of potential overlap are in the central and eastern parts of the QMNNR, but landscape connectivity is relatively poor. This study further improved the understanding of the basic knowledge of BP and EP coexistence. Conservation actions should give priority to those highly overlapping areas and strengthen forest landscape connectivity, as they provide irreplaceable habitats for threatened Galliformes. Abstract Studying the spatio-temporal niche partitioning among closely related sympatric species is essential for understanding their stable coexistence in animal communities. However, consideration of niche partitioning across multiple ecological dimensions is still poor for many sympatric pheasant species. Here, we studied temporal activity patterns and spatial distributions of the Blue Eared Pheasant (EP, Crossoptilon auritum) and Blood Pheasant (BP, Ithaginis cruentus) in the Qilian Mountains National Nature Reserve (QMNNR), Northwestern China, using 137 camera traps from August 2017 to August 2020. Kernel density estimation was applied to analyze diel activity patterns, and the Maxent model was applied to evaluate their suitable distributions and underlying habitat preferences. Eight Galliformes species were captured in 678 detection records with 485 records of EP and 106 records of BP over a total of 39,206 camera days. Their monthly activity frequencies demonstrate temporal partitioning but their diel activity patterns do not. Furthermore, 90.78% of BP distribution (2867.99 km2) overlaps with the distribution of EP (4355.86 km2) in the QMNNR. However, BP manifests a high dependence on forest habitats and shows larger Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values, while EP showed obvious avoidance of forest with NDVI greater than 0.75. Hence, differentiation in monthly activity patterns and partitioning in habitat preference might facilitate their coexistence in spatiotemporal dimensions. Conservation actions should give priority to highly overlapping areas in the center and east of the QMNNR and should strengthen forest landscape connectivity, as they provide irreplaceable habitats for these threatened and endemic Galliformes.

Dataset Information

Recent changes in daily climate extremes in an arid mountain region, a case study in northwestern China's Qilian Mountains.

Publications

Recent changes in daily climate extremes in an arid mountain region, a case study in northwestern China's Qilian Mountains.

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