Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China

Identifying the areas at risk of ecosystem transformation and the main contributing factors to the risk is essential to assist ecological adaptation to climate change. We assessed the risk of ecosystem shifts in China using the projections of four global gridded vegetation models (GGVMs) and an aggr...

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Main Authors:	Yin, Yuanyuan, Tang, Qiuhong, Wang, Lixin, Liu, Xingcai
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Nature Publishing Group 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4751438/

id	pubmed-4751438
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-47514382016-02-18 Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China Yin, Yuanyuan Tang, Qiuhong Wang, Lixin Liu, Xingcai Article Identifying the areas at risk of ecosystem transformation and the main contributing factors to the risk is essential to assist ecological adaptation to climate change. We assessed the risk of ecosystem shifts in China using the projections of four global gridded vegetation models (GGVMs) and an aggregate metric. The results show that half of naturally vegetated land surface could be under moderate or severe risk at the end of the 21st century under the middle and high emission scenarios. The areas with high risk are the Tibetan Plateau region and an area extended northeastward from the Tibetan Plateau to northeast China. With the three major factors considered, the change in carbon stocks is the main contributing factor to the high risk of ecosystem shifts. The change in carbon fluxes is another important contributing factor under the high emission scenario. The change in water fluxes is a less dominant factor except for the Tibetan Plateau region under the high emission scenario. Although there is considerable uncertainty in the risk assessment, the geographic patterns of the risk are generally consistent across different scenarios. The results could help develop regional strategies for ecosystem conservation to cope with climate change. Nature Publishing Group 2016-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC4751438/ /pubmed/26867481 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep20905 Text en Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Yin, Yuanyuan Tang, Qiuhong Wang, Lixin Liu, Xingcai
spellingShingle	Yin, Yuanyuan Tang, Qiuhong Wang, Lixin Liu, Xingcai Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China
author_facet	Yin, Yuanyuan Tang, Qiuhong Wang, Lixin Liu, Xingcai
author_sort	Yin, Yuanyuan
title	Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China
title_short	Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China
title_full	Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China
title_fullStr	Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China
title_full_unstemmed	Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China
title_sort	risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in china
description	Identifying the areas at risk of ecosystem transformation and the main contributing factors to the risk is essential to assist ecological adaptation to climate change. We assessed the risk of ecosystem shifts in China using the projections of four global gridded vegetation models (GGVMs) and an aggregate metric. The results show that half of naturally vegetated land surface could be under moderate or severe risk at the end of the 21st century under the middle and high emission scenarios. The areas with high risk are the Tibetan Plateau region and an area extended northeastward from the Tibetan Plateau to northeast China. With the three major factors considered, the change in carbon stocks is the main contributing factor to the high risk of ecosystem shifts. The change in carbon fluxes is another important contributing factor under the high emission scenario. The change in water fluxes is a less dominant factor except for the Tibetan Plateau region under the high emission scenario. Although there is considerable uncertainty in the risk assessment, the geographic patterns of the risk are generally consistent across different scenarios. The results could help develop regional strategies for ecosystem conservation to cope with climate change.
publisher	Nature Publishing Group
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4751438/
_version_	1613537753443598336

Risk and contributing factors of ecosystem shifts over naturally vegetated land under climate change in China

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