Abstract
Quantifying the phenological variations of Populus euphratica Olivier (P. euphratica) resulting from climate change is vital for desert ecosystems. There has previously been great progress in the influence of climate change on vegetation phenology, but knowledge of the variations in P. euphratica phenology is lacking in extremely arid areas. In this study, a modified method was proposed to explore P. euphratica phenology and its response to climate change using 18-year Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) leaf area index (LAI) time series data (2000–2017) in the upper Tarim River basin. The start of the growing season (SOS), length of the growing season (LOS), and end of the growing season (EOS) were obtained with the dynamic threshold method from the reconstructed growth time series curve by using the Savitzky–Golay filtering method. The grey relational analysis (GRA) method was utilized to analyze the influence between the phenology and the key climatic periods and factors. Importantly, we also revealed the positive and negative effects between interannual climate factors and P. euphratica phenology using the canonical correlation analysis (CCA) method, and the interaction between the SOS in spring and EOS in autumn. The results revealed that trends of P. euphratica phenology (i.e., SOS, EOS, and LOS) were not significant during the period from 2000–2017. The spring temperature and sunshine duration (SD) controlled the SOS, and the EOS was mainly affected by the temperature and SD from June–November, although the impacts of average relative humidity (RH) and precipitation (PR) on the SOS and EOS cannot be overlooked. Global warming may lead to SOS advance and EOS delay, and the increase in SD and PR may lead to earlier SOS and later EOS. Runoff was found to be a more key factor for controlling P. euphratica phenology than PR in this region.
Highlights
Vegetation phenology is the research of events in the plant life cycle, and how these events adapt to climate changes [1,2], which makes it the most intuitive and sensitive biological indicator of climate change
P. euphratica phenology, the impacts of relative humidity (RH) and PR on P. euphratica phenology cannot be overlooked in the upper Tarim River basin
The temperature and sunshine duration (SD) controlled P. euphratica phenology, the impacts of RH and PR on P. euphratica phenology cannot be overlooked in the upper Tarim River basin, implying that it is not easy to characterize phenological change with simple climate data
Summary
Vegetation phenology is the research of events in the plant life cycle, and how these events adapt to climate changes [1,2], which makes it the most intuitive and sensitive biological indicator of climate change Climate change, such as modified precipitation, increasing temperature, and increasing frequency of extreme weather events, will change the vegetation phenology [3], which will have extensive effects on plant community structure, plant distribution, energy cycles, vegetation ecosystems, and primary production of vegetation [4,5,6,7,8]. Plant growth, including leaf unfolding, flowering, fruiting, and leaf senescence, has been recorded to reflect the phenological characteristics of vegetation based on ground monitoring sites of phenology. This method has some limitations in the spatiotemporal scale and biome scale [11]. There is still a need to demonstrate the relationship of the preseason, interannual, and multi-climatic factors with phenology, and what kind of interaction exists between the SOS and EOS
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