Abstract
This study investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of tropical deciduous forest including dry dipterocarp forest (DDF) and mixed deciduous forest (MDF) and its phenological changes in responses to El Niño and La Niña during 2001–2016. Based on time series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) extracted from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the start of growing season (SOS), the end of growing season (EOS), and length of growing season (LOS) were derived. In absence of climatic fluctuation, the SOS of DDF commonly started on 106 ± 7 DOY, delayed to 132 DOY in El Niño year (2010) and advanced to 87 DOY in La Niña year (2011). Thus, there was a delay of about 19 to 33 days in El Niño and an earlier onset of about 13 to 27 days in La Niña year. The SOS of MDF started almost same time as of DDF on the 107 ± 7 DOY during the neutral years and delayed to 127 DOY during El Niño, advanced to 92 DOY in La Niña year. The SOS of MDF was delayed by about 12 to 28 days in El Niño and was earlier about 8 to 22 days in La Niña. Corresponding to these shifts in SOS and LOS of both DDF and MDF were also induced by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Highlights
Tropical forests contain about 25% of the carbon in the terrestrial biosphere and account for 34%of Earth’s gross primary production [1]
Various data types including meteorological observation, remote sensing, forest inventory maps, digital elevation models, and in situ leaf area index (LAI) observation were applied to evaluate the response of tropical deciduous forest to extreme climate anomalies including El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events
The results indicate that phenological metrics of tropical deciduous forest varied in response to precipitation and temperature anomalies associated with ENSO events
Summary
Tropical forests contain about 25% of the carbon in the terrestrial biosphere and account for 34%of Earth’s gross primary production [1]. Among various types of tropical forests, tropical deciduous forest occupies about 43% of the forest area in the tropical belt with great diversity of species [5] It provides valuable services involving biodiversity, water resources and carbon sinks. Strong climatic disturbances can severely reduce forest biomass, and if the frequency and intensity of these events increases beyond historical averages, these changing disturbance regimes have the capacity to significantly reduce forest biomass, resulting in a net source of carbon to the atmosphere. Many others studies have indicated that strong El Niño events have negative impacts on forest ecosystems, which could result in significant increasing level of tree mortality, changing plant phenology and carbon flux [3,4,8,9,10,11,12]
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