Dataset Information

Photoperiod controls vegetation phenology across Africa.

ABSTRACT: Vegetation phenology is driven by environmental factors such as photoperiod, precipitation, temperature, insolation, and nutrient availability. However, across Africa, there's ambiguity about these drivers, which can lead to uncertainty in the predictions of global warming impacts on terrestrial ecosystems and their representation in dynamic vegetation models. Using satellite data, we undertook a systematic analysis of the relationship between phenological parameters and these drivers. The analysis across different regions consistently revealed photoperiod as the dominant factor controlling the onset and end of vegetation growing season. Moreover, the results suggest that not one, but a combination of drivers control phenological events. Consequently, to enhance our predictions of climate change impacts, the role of photoperiod should be incorporated into vegetation-climate and ecosystem modelling. Furthermore, it is necessary to define clearly the responses of vegetation to interactions between a consistent photoperiod cue and inter-annual variation in other drivers, especially under a changing climate.

SUBMITTER: Adole T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6814729 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Photoperiod controls vegetation phenology across Africa.

Adole Tracy T Dash Jadunandan J Rodriguez-Galiano Victor V Atkinson Peter M PM

Communications biology 20191025

Vegetation phenology is driven by environmental factors such as photoperiod, precipitation, temperature, insolation, and nutrient availability. However, across Africa, there's ambiguity about these drivers, which can lead to uncertainty in the predictions of global warming impacts on terrestrial ecosystems and their representation in dynamic vegetation models. Using satellite data, we undertook a systematic analysis of the relationship between phenological parameters and these drivers. The analy ...[more]

PMID: 31667365

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Project description:BackgroundVegetation phenology research has largely focused on temperate deciduous forests, thus limiting our understanding of the response of evergreen vegetation to climate change in tropical and subtropical regions.ResultsUsing satellite solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and MODIS enhanced vegetation index (EVI) data, we applied two methods to evaluate temporal and spatial patterns of the end of the growing season (EGS) in subtropical vegetation in China, and analyze the dependence of EGS on preseason maximum and minimum temperatures as well as cumulative precipitation. Our results indicated that the averaged EGS derived from the SIF and EVI based on the two methods (dynamic threshold method and derivative method) was later than that derived from gross primary productivity (GPP) based on the eddy covariance technique, and the time-lag for EGSsif and EGSevi was approximately 2 weeks and 4 weeks, respectively. We found that EGS was positively correlated with preseason minimum temperature and cumulative precipitation (accounting for more than 73% and 62% of the study areas, respectively), but negatively correlated with preseason maximum temperature (accounting for more than 59% of the study areas). In addition, EGS was more sensitive to the changes in the preseason minimum temperature than to other climatic factors, and an increase in the preseason minimum temperature significantly delayed the EGS in evergreen forests, shrub and grassland.ConclusionsOur results indicated that the SIF outperformed traditional vegetation indices in capturing the autumn photosynthetic phenology of evergreen forest in the subtropical region of China. We found that minimum temperature plays a significant role in determining autumn photosynthetic phenology in the study region. These findings contribute to improving our understanding of the response of the EGS to climate change in subtropical vegetation of China, and provide a new perspective for accurately evaluating the role played by evergreen vegetation in the regional carbon budget.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40663-021-00309-9.

Project description:Tropical climate is rapidly changing, but the effects of these changes on the geosphere are unknown, despite a likelihood of climatically-induced changes on weathering and erosion. The lack of long, continuous paleo-records prevents an examination of terrestrial responses to climate change with sufficient detail to answer questions about how systems behaved in the past and may alter in the future. We use high-resolution records of pollen, clay mineralogy, and particle size from a drill core from Lake Malawi, southeast Africa, to examine atmosphere-biosphere-geosphere interactions during the last deglaciation (∼ 18-9 ka), a period of dramatic temperature and hydrologic changes. The results demonstrate that climatic controls on Lake Malawi vegetation are critically important to weathering processes and erosion patterns during the deglaciation. At 18 ka, afromontane forests dominated but were progressively replaced by tropical seasonal forest, as summer rainfall increased. Despite indication of decreased rainfall, drought-intolerant forest persisted through the Younger Dryas (YD) resulting from a shorter dry season. Following the YD, an intensified summer monsoon and increased rainfall seasonality were coeval with forest decline and expansion of drought-tolerant miombo woodland. Clay minerals closely track the vegetation record, with high ratios of kaolinite to smectite (K/S) indicating heavy leaching when forest predominates, despite variable rainfall. In the early Holocene, when rainfall and temperature increased (effective moisture remained low), open woodlands expansion resulted in decreased K/S, suggesting a reduction in chemical weathering intensity. Terrigenous sediment mass accumulation rates also increased, suggesting critical linkages among open vegetation and erosion during intervals of enhanced summer rainfall. This study shows a strong, direct influence of vegetation composition on weathering intensity in the tropics. As climate change will likely impact this interplay between the biosphere and geosphere, tropical landscape change could lead to deleterious effects on soil and water quality in regions with little infrastructure for mitigation.

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Dataset Information

Photoperiod controls vegetation phenology across Africa.

Publications

Photoperiod controls vegetation phenology across Africa.

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