Disturbance amplifies sensitivity of dryland productivity to precipitation variability.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39058780.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adm9732 and PMC identifier 11277371.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Variability of the terrestrial global carbon sink is largely determined by the response of dryland productivity to annual precipitation. Despite extensive disturbance in drylands, how disturbance alters productivity-precipitation relationships remains poorly understood. Using remote-sensing to pair more than 5600 km of natural gas pipeline corridors with neighboring undisturbed areas in North American drylands, we found that disturbance reduced average annual production 6 to 29% and caused up to a fivefold increase in the sensitivity of net primary productivity (NPP) to interannual variation in precipitation. Disturbance impacts were larger and longer-lasting at locations with higher precipitation (>450 mm mean annual precipitation). Disturbance effects on NPP dynamics were mostly explained by shifts from woody to herbaceous vegetation. Severe disturbance will amplify effects of increasing precipitation variability on NPP in drylands.