Liao et al. (2025) Biodiversity regulates the asymmetric influence of forest cover gain and loss on land surface temperature

Identification

• Journal: Communications Earth & Environment
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-06
• Authors: Ziyin Liao, Chaoqun Zhang, Yixiao Wang, Jian Wu, Wenting Yan, Yongxian Su
• DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-03048-9

Research Groups

• Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
• State Key Laboratory for Ecological Security of Regions and Cities, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
• Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System, Guangdong Open Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology and Application, Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Academy of Science, Guangzhou, China
• University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
• Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China
• Guangdong Province Data Center of Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystems Carbon Cycle, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China

Short Summary

This study reveals that biodiversity is the dominant driver of spatial heterogeneity in the asymmetric land surface temperature responses to forest cover gain and loss, primarily by stabilizing interannual climate variability and enhancing soil organic carbon, which promotes young tree growth and associated cooling effects.

Objective

• To test whether biodiversity regulates the asymmetric influence of forest cover gain and loss on land surface temperature (ΔS) and how biodiversity influences global variations in ΔS.
• To clarify forests’ role in mitigating global warming and identify regions where biodiversity conservation could enhance the climate benefits of forest management strategies.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, with analyses at 0.05° resolution (MODIS LST, ΔS map), 30 m resolution (GFW tree cover), 0.025° resolution (TSR), 25 km × 25 km (AFD), and 7,800 km² hexagonal grid cells (VSR). Analyses performed using 2°×2°, 4°×4°, 10°×10°, and 20°×20° moving windows.
• Temporal Scale: 2000–2020.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Binary linear regression, partial correlation analysis, multiple linear regression, Random Forest (RF), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).
• Data sources:
  • Satellite-derived Land Surface Temperature (LST) from MOD11C3 v061 product (0.05° resolution).
  • 30 m resolution tree cover maps from Global Forest Watch (GFW), updated to 2020 by Potapov et al.
  • MODIS land cover product (MCD12C1 v061).
  • Tree species richness (TSR) data from the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative (GFBI) (0.025° × 0.025° resolution).
  • Vascular plant species richness (VSR) dataset from the Anthroecology Lab (7,800 km² hexagonal grid cells).
  • Global angiosperm functional diversity (AFD) dataset (25 km × 25 km resolution).
  • Climate data (temperature, precipitation, radiation, vapor pressure deficit) from TerraClimate.
  • Soil moisture (SM) from ERA5-Land.
  • Soil properties (soil organic carbon (SOC), soil clay content, soil nitrogen content) from SoilGrids.
  • Elevation (DEM) from SRTM.
  • Aboveground biomass (AGB) datasets.
  • Leaf area index (LAI) from GLASS.
  • Tree height datasets.
  • Tree age datasets.

Main Results

• Land surface temperature (LST) responses to forest gain and loss are highly asymmetric, with stronger cooling per unit gain than warming per unit loss (ΔS > 0) in tropical (mean ΔS = 0.54 ± 0.589 °C) and temperate (mean ΔS = 0.39 ± 0.565 °C) regions. Boreal regions showed a near-neutral mean ΔS of -0.03 ± 0.347 °C.
• Biodiversity (tree species richness) is the dominant driver of spatial heterogeneity in this asymmetry (ΔS), exhibiting a predominantly positive influence across 87.42% of forest grid cells (77.66% statistically significant, P < 0.05).
• Machine learning models (Random Forest, XGBoost) confirmed biodiversity as the most influential factor explaining ΔS across all climate zones, surpassing other environmental variables.
• The mechanisms by which biodiversity influences ΔS vary by climatic zone:
  • In tropical and temperate zones, higher biodiversity reduces interannual variability in temperature and vapor pressure deficit, and increases precipitation variability, promoting young tree growth with higher evapotranspiration rates and enhanced latent heat cooling.
  • In boreal regions, higher biodiversity increases both precipitation and VPD variability, stimulating vegetation growth and transpiration, and critically, enhances soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, which is a dominant pathway for amplifying ΔS in these nutrient-limited areas.
• The positive biodiversity–ΔS relationship is robust across different biodiversity datasets and spatial scales but is notably weaker in winter, especially in boreal regions with snow cover, due to LST retrieval biases and a shift from evapotranspiration to albedo control.

Contributions

• Provides the first quantitative, global-scale evidence linking biodiversity to the spatial heterogeneity of the asymmetric land surface temperature responses to forest cover gain and loss (ΔS).
• Identifies biodiversity as the dominant driver of ΔS, highlighting its more significant role compared to individual environmental factors.
• Elucidates biome-specific mechanisms through which biodiversity regulates ΔS, primarily by stabilizing interannual climate variability (temperature, VPD, precipitation, soil moisture) and enhancing soil organic carbon storage, which promotes young tree growth and associated cooling effects.
• Emphasizes the critical need to incorporate biodiversity into Earth system models to improve land–climate predictions and enhance the climate benefits of forest management strategies under global change.

Funding

• National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42471326)
• Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No. 2024A1515030190)
• Young Talent Project of GDAS (Grant No. 2023GDASQNRC-0217)
• GDAS' Project of Science and Technology Development (Grant Nos. 2024GDASZH-2024010102, 2022GDASZH-2022010105)

Citation

@article{Liao2025Biodiversity,
  author = {Liao, Ziyin and Zhang, Chaoqun and Wang, Yixiao and Wu, Jian and Yan, Wenting and Su, Yongxian},
  title = {Biodiversity regulates the asymmetric influence of forest cover gain and loss on land surface temperature},
  journal = {Communications Earth & Environment},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1038/s43247-025-03048-9},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03048-9}
}