Abstract
AbstractClimate is well known as an important determinant of biogeography. Although climate is directly important for vegetation composition in the boreal forests, these ecosystems are strongly sensitive to an indirect effect of climate via fire disturbance. However, the driving balance of fire disturbance and climate on composition is poorly understood. In this study, we quantitatively analyzed their individual contributions for the boreal forests of the Heilongjiang Province, China, and their response to climate change using four warming scenarios (+1.5°, 2°, 3°, and 4°C). This study employs the statistical methods of Redundancy Analysis (RDA) and variation partitioning combined with simulation results from a SErgey VERsion Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (SEVER‐DGVM), and remote sensing datasets of global land cover (GLC2000) and the third version of Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED3). Results show that the vegetation distribution for the present day is mainly determined directly by climate (35%) rather than fire (1–10.9%). However, with a future global warming of 1.5°C, local vegetation composition will be determined by fires rather than climate (36.3% > 29.3%). Above 1.5°C warming, temperature will be more important than fires in regulating vegetation distribution although other factors such as precipitation can also contribute. The spatial pattern in vegetation composition over the region, as evaluated by Moran's Eigenvector Map (MEM), has a significant impact on local vegetation coverage; for example, composition at any individual location is highly related to that in its neighborhood. It represents the largest contribution to vegetation distribution in all scenarios, but will not change the driving balance between climate and fires. Our results are highly relevant for forest and wildfires' management.
Highlights
The boreal forest, as one of the important flammable ecosystems around the world, occupies 30% of the global forest areas (Gauthier et al 2015)
A large difference existed for evergreen needleleaf forest (ENF) and we only captured the ENF distribution in the northwest; these might be the results of the misclassification in GLC2000 between ENF and mixed forests in other parts of the study areas
Based on remote sensing products, we find that large areas of mixed forests are distributed in Heilongjiang Province, which has been proved by the vegetation atlas of China (Tan et al 2007)
Summary
The boreal forest, as one of the important flammable ecosystems around the world, occupies 30% of the global forest areas (Gauthier et al 2015). It is widely considered that climate, especially temperature and precipitation, directly controls the vegetation composition and distribution (Scheiter and Higgins 2009); vegetation classifications are mainly based on such climate variables (e.g., Holdridge life zones [Holdridge 1947]). Precipitation controls vegetation distribution by changing the water balance of the ecosystem (Stephenson 1990). Climate is undoubtedly an important driver in regulating vegetation structure, within a single climate zone, different combinations of species can exist together, suggesting a decoupling of climate and vegetation, which means that other controls are important in determining the local vegetation composition within any biome (Murphy and Bowman 2012, Scheffer et al 2012)
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