Rainy season onset mainly drives the spatiotemporal variability of spring vegetation green-up across alpine dry ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau.

ABSTRACT: It is still debatable whether temperature or precipitation mainly triggers spring vegetation green-up (SVG) in alpine dry ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau. As phenological sensitivity to the arrival of monsoon-season rainfall would allow plants to simultaneously avoid drought and frost damages in the early growing season, we hypothesize that rainy season onset (RSO) rather than temperature mainly drives the spatiotemporal variability of SVG across alpine dry ecosystems over the Tibetan Plateau. Dates of RSO and SVG across 67 target areas nearby 67 weather stations over the Tibetan Plateau were calculated from time-series data of daily mean temperature and precipitation (1974-2013) and of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (200

SUBMITTER: Li X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7606468 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature