Abstract
Multiple studies revealed that pasture grasslands are a time-varying complex ecological system. Climate variables regulate vegetation growing, being precipitation and temperature the most critical driver factors. This work aims to assess the response of two different Vegetation Indices (VIs) to the temporal dynamics of temperature and precipitation in a semiarid area. Two Mediterranean grasslands zones situated in the center of Spain were selected to accomplish this goal. Correlations and cross-correlations between VI and each climatic variable were computed. Different lagged responses of each VIs series were detected, varying in zones, the year’s season, and the climatic variable. Recurrence Plots (RPs) and Cross Recurrence Plots (CRPs) analyses were applied to characterise and quantify the system’s complexity showed in the cross-correlation analysis. RPs pointed out that short-term predictability and high dimensionality of VIs series, as well as precipitation, characterised this dynamic. Meanwhile, temperature showed a more regular pattern and lower dimensionality. CRPs revealed that precipitation was a critical variable to distinguish between zones due to their complex pattern and influence on the soil’s water balance that the VI reflects. Overall, we prove RP and CRP’s potential as adequate tools for analysing vegetation dynamics characterised by complexity.
Highlights
Pasture grasslands are considered one of the most important ecological systems in the Iberian Peninsula, providing multiple agro-environmental services [1], including biodiversity and meat production
Several measures of complexity have been proposed to be quantified by the RQA, though, in this work, we focused on Determinism (DET), Average length of structures (LT), Shannon’s Entropy (ENT), Laminarity (LAM) and trapping time (TT), the extended formulas are added in the Appendix A
Temperature and precipitation yearly tendencies found in this work are consistent with what was reported in previous studies, where the temperature is increasing, and precipitation is decreasing in semiarid zones due to the climate change effect [62,63]
Summary
Pasture grasslands are considered one of the most important ecological systems in the Iberian Peninsula, providing multiple agro-environmental services [1], including biodiversity and meat production. Several studies [2,3] presented pasture grasslands as a spatial temporal-varying complex ecological system involving multiple variables. Historical time-series analysis [4] is considered an appropriate method to examine and characterise pasture grasslands complexity. We aim to assess the response of two different Vegetation Indices (VIs) time series to the temporal dynamics of temperature and precipitation in a semiarid area, characterised by a significant presence of bare soil and dead vegetation. Precipitation, and temperature [7] have been pointed out as the most direct driver factors for plant growth. Based on this assumption, Gesner et al [8]
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