Prevalence and drivers of abrupt vegetation shifts in global drylands

Abstract

The constant provision of plant productivity is integral to supporting the liability of ecosystems and human wellbeing in global drylands. Drylands are paradigmatic examples of systems prone to experiencing abrupt changes in their functioning. Indeed, space-for-time substitution approaches suggest that abrupt changes in plant productivity are widespread, but this evidence is less clear using observational time series or experimental data at a large scale. Studying the prevalence and, most importantly, the unknown drivers of abrupt (rather than gradual) dynamical patterns in drylands may help to unveil hotspots of current and future dynamical instabilities in drylands. Using a 20-y global satellite-derived temporal assessment of dryland Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), we show that 50% of all dryland ecosystems exhibiting gains or losses of NDVI are characterized by abrupt positive/negative temporal dynamics. We further show that abrupt changes are more common among negative than positive NDVI trends and can be found in global regions suffering recent droughts, particularly around critical aridity thresholds. Positive abrupt dynamics are found most in ecosystems with low seasonal variability or high aridity. Our work unveils the high importance of climate variability on triggering abrupt shifts in vegetation and it provides missing evidence of increasing abruptness in systems intensively managed by humans, with low soil organic carbon contents, or around specific aridity thresholds. These results highlight that abrupt changes in dryland dynamics are very common, especially for productivity losses, pinpoint global hotspots of dryland vulnerability, and identify drivers that could be targeted for effective dryland management.