Quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation in the Sahel

Journal article


Buxton, Joshua E., Abrams, Jesse F., Boulton, Chris A., Barlow, Nick, Rangel Smith, Camila, Van Stroud, Samuel, Lees, K. and Lenton, Timothy M. 2021. Quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation in the Sahel. Global Change Biology. 28 (2), pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15939
AuthorsBuxton, Joshua E., Abrams, Jesse F., Boulton, Chris A., Barlow, Nick, Rangel Smith, Camila, Van Stroud, Samuel, Lees, K. and Lenton, Timothy M.
Abstract

Patterning of vegetation in drylands is a consequence of localized feedback mechanisms. Such feedbacks also determine ecosystem resilience—i.e. the ability to recover from perturbation. Hence, the patterning of vegetation has been hypothesized to be an indicator of resilience, that is, spots are less resilient than labyrinths. Previous studies have made this qualitative link and used models to quantitatively explore it, but few have quantitatively analysed available data to test the hypothesis. Here we provide methods for quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation, applied to 40 sites in the Sahel (a mix of previously identified and new ones). We show that an existing quantification of vegetation patterns in terms of a feature vector metric can effectively distinguish gaps, labyrinths, spots, and a novel category of spot–labyrinths at their maximum extent, whereas NDVI does not. The feature vector pattern metric correlates with mean precipitation. We then explored two approaches to measuring resilience. First we treated the rainy season as a perturbation and examined the subsequent rate of decay of patterns and NDVI as possible measures of resilience. This showed faster decay rates—conventionally interpreted as greater resilience—associated with wetter, more vegetated sites. Second we detrended the seasonal cycle and examined temporal autocorrelation and variance of the residuals as possible measures of resilience. Autocorrelation and variance of our pattern metric increase with declining mean precipitation, consistent with loss of resilience. Thus, drier sites appear less resilient, but we find no significant correlation between the mean or maximum value of the pattern metric (and associated morphological pattern types) and either of our measures of resilience.

Keywordsvegetation in drylands; ecosystem resilience; morphological pattern types
Year2021
JournalGlobal Change Biology
Journal citation28 (2), pp. 1-17
PublisherWiley
ISSN1365-2486
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15939
Web address (URL)https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15939
Output statusPublished
Publication dates15 Oct 2022
Publication process dates
Accepted25 Sep 2021
Deposited11 Aug 2022
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https://repository.derby.ac.uk/item/98255/quantitatively-monitoring-the-resilience-of-patterned-vegetation-in-the-sahel

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