Vegetation Productivity in Natural vs. Cultivated Systems along Water Availability Gradients in the Dry Subtropics.

ABSTRACT: The dry subtropics are subject to a rapid expansion of crops and pastures over vast areas of natural woodlands and savannas. In this paper, we explored the effect of this transformation on vegetation productivity (magnitude, and seasonal and long-term variability) along aridity gradients which span from semiarid to subhumid conditions, considering exclusively those areas with summer rains (>66%). Vegetation productivity was characterized with the proxy metric "Enhanced Vegetation Index" (EVI) (2000 to 2012 period), on 6186 natural and cultivated sampling points on five continents, and combined with a global climatology database by means of additive models for quantile regressions. Globally and regionally, cultivation amplified the seasonal and inter-annual variability of EVI without affect

SUBMITTER: Baldi G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5179098 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature