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Drivers of ecosystem stability differ with the intensity of extreme climatic events
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DOI:10.5194/bg-23-4623-2026.png)
Abstract
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Abstract. This study investigates how the dominant predictors of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based vegetation stability metrics vary across gradients of hydroclimatic extremity. While previous studies have documented the impacts of droughts and heavy rainfall on ecosystem functioning and resilience inferred from stochastic fluctuations; less attention has been given to whether the relative importance of climatic; biodiversity-related; and landscape predictors changes systematically under different levels of climatic stress. To address this question; we quantified vegetation resistance and resilience responses and compared the contributions of meteorological variables; modeled anthropogenic species-change proxies and topographic factors across a global range of hydroclimatic conditions. We find that under normal to moderately dry conditions; vegetation stability metrics are primarily associated with meteorological variables; particularly temperature and precipitation; consistent with earlier global assessments. Under severe and extreme drought conditions; resistance decreases markedly across most regions; whereas resilience responses exhibit weaker and more spatially heterogeneous changes. Importantly; in sparsely vegetated ecosystems such as grasslands and open shrublands; the relative importance of leading predictors shifts from climatic to non-climatic variables under intensified drought stress; suggesting context-dependent associations with vegetation stability. Deciduous needle-leaf forests show consistently low resistance and resilience values across climatic regimes; suggesting elevated sensitivity to hydroclimatic variability. Overall; our findings suggest that vegetation stability under climatic extremes cannot be fully explained by meteorological forcing alone and that these modeled proxies and landscape heterogeneity provide additional predictive information under intensifying climate variability.
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