Resilience to drought of dryland wetlands threatened by climate change
Loading...
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nature Research
Abstract
Description
Dryland wetlands are resilient ecosystems that can adapt to extreme periodic drought–flood episodes.
Climate change projections show increased drought severity in drylands that could compromise
wetland resilience and reduce important habitat services. These recognized risks have been difficult to
evaluate due to our limited capacity to establish comprehensive relationships between flood–drought
episodes and vegetation responses at the relevant spatiotemporal scales. We address this issue by
integrating detailed spatiotemporal flood–drought simulations with remotely sensed vegetation
responses to water regimes in a dryland wetland known for its highly variable inundation. We show
that a combination of drought tolerance and dormancy strategies allow wetland vegetation to recover
after droughts and recolonize areas invaded by terrestrial species. However, climate change scenarios
show widespread degradation during drought and limited recovery after floods. Importantly, the
combination of degradation extent and increase in drought duration is critical for the habitat services
wetland systems provide for waterbirds and fish.
Citation
Endorsement
Review
Supplemented By
Referenced By
Creative Commons license
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/