Decline in stability of forest productivity in the tropics as determined by canopy water content

Feng Liu; Hongyan Liu; Wulahati Adalibieke; Zhaoyu Peng; Boyi Liang; Siwen Feng; Liang Shi; Xinrong Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107211

Decline in stability of forest productivity in the tropics as determined by canopy water content

iScience. 2023 Jun 26;26(7):107211. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107211. eCollection 2023 Jul 21.

Authors

Feng Liu¹, Hongyan Liu¹, Wulahati Adalibieke¹, Zhaoyu Peng¹, Boyi Liang², Siwen Feng¹, Liang Shi¹, Xinrong Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and MOE Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² College of Forestry, Precision Forestry Key Laboratory of Beijing, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.

Abstract

The impacts of low soil moisture (SM) and high vapour pressure deficit (VPD) on tree's photosynthesis and productivity are ultimately realized by changing water content in the canopy leaves. In this study, variations in canopy water content (CWC) that can be detected from microwave remotely sensed vegetation optical depth (VOD) have been proposed as a promising measure of vegetation water status, and we first reported that the regulation of CWC on productivity stability is universally applicable for global forests. Results of structural equation model (SEM) also confirmed the significant negative effect of CWC on coefficient of variation (CV) of productivity, indicating that the decrease in CWC could inevitably induce the instability of forest productivity under climate change. The most significant decrease (p < 0.01) of CWC is observed primarily in evergreen broadleaf forest in the tropics, implying an increasing instability of the most important carbon sink in terrestrial ecosystem.

Keywords: Climatology; Forestry; Remote sensing.