Abstract
Urbanization can induce environmental changes such as the urban heat island effect, which in turn influence the terrestrial ecosystem. However, the effect of urbanization on the phenology of subtropical vegetation remains relatively unexplored. This study analyzed the changing trend of vegetation photosynthetic phenology in Dongting Lake basin, China, and its response to urbanization using nighttime light and chlorophyll fluorescence datasets. Our results indicated the start of the growing season (SOS) of vegetation in the study area was significantly advanced by 0.70 days per year, whereas the end of the growing season (EOS) was delayed by 0.24 days per year during 2000–2017. We found that urbanization promoted the SOS advance and EOS delay. With increasing urbanization intensity, the sensitivity of SOS to urbanization firstly increased then decreased, while the sensitivity of EOS to urbanization decreased with urbanization intensity. The climate sensitivity of vegetation phenology varied with urbanization intensity; urbanization induced an earlier SOS by increasing preseason minimum temperatures and a later EOS by increasing preseason precipitation. These findings improve our understanding of the vegetation phenology response to urbanization in subtropical regions and highlight the need to integrate human activities into future vegetation phenology models.
Highlights
Phenology describes the adaptation of the physiological activities of organisms to periodic changes in their surroundings [1]
We evaluated the temporal and spatial patterns of vegetation photosynthetic phenology and its response to urbanization intensity in the Dongting Lake basin using solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and nighttime light products
0.7 days per year, the end of the growing season (EOS) was delayed by 0.24 days per year, and the length of growing season (LOS) was extended by 0.94 days per year; these photosynthetic phenological changes were more significant in spring than in autumn
Summary
Phenology describes the adaptation of the physiological activities of organisms to periodic changes in their surroundings [1]. Because vegetation phenology is profoundly influenced by regional climatic conditions [2,3,4], it provides important evidence of climate change [5]. Vegetation phenology research improves our understanding of the response mechanisms of vegetation to climate change and provides more a nuanced perspective of the energy cycle of the ground-air system, which is significant for the assessment of regional carbon sinks. Temperature, precipitation, and photoperiod are considered as primary natural factors affecting vegetation phenology [10,11]. In arid and semi-arid regions, increased precipitation leads to earlier SOS [12], whereas maximum and minimum temperatures have different effects on EOS for different regions or vegetation types [10].
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