Spring precipitation directly impacts the growth and development of vegetation in dryland ecosystems, which in turn affects the biomass of t
Spring precipitation directly impacts the growth and development of vegetation in dryland ecosystems, which in turn affects the biomass of the growing season and fundamentally maintains the ecosystem stability. However, the effects of recently frequent variabilities in spring precipitation on ecosystem productivity are still unclear. Here, we investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation and gross primary productivity (GPP) in the spring, as well as the impact of spring excessive precipitation on GPP over dryland ecosystems in northern China, based on remote sensing datasets of precipitation and GPP at eight-day intervals from 2000 to 2018. We also assess the sensitivity and stability of GPP to spring excessive precipitation. Spring excessive precipitation had a unidirectional driving effect on vegetation growth and an evident lag effect of an eight-day period across more than 87% of the drylands in northern China. This indicates that dryland ecosystems in northern China respond quickly to excessive precipitation in the spring. Vegetation sensitivity to excessive precipitation is the weakest at an aridity index of around 0.1. Drylands with high temperatures and large precipitation exhibit positive sensitivity, strong resistance, and high resilience of vegetation to excessive precipitation. There is a synchronous change between the resistance and resilience of GPP to excessive precipitation. Our results provide an innovative understanding of the interaction mechanism between precipitation variations and dryland ecosystems, offering theoretical support for ecological restoration, sustainable development, and carbon neutrality in dryland regions.
