Guan et al. (2025) Discrepant Pathway in Regulating ET Under Change in Community Composition of Alpine Grassland in the Source Region of the Yellow River

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Remote Sensing
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-17
• Authors: Shuntian Guan, Longyue Zhang, Yunqi Xiong, Congjia Li, Zhenzhen Zheng, Shibo Huang, Ronghai Hu, Xiaoming Kang, Jianqin Du, Kai Xue, Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang, Yanbin Hao
• DOI: 10.3390/rs17244046

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study investigated evapotranspiration dynamics across five alpine grassland transition types in the Source Region of the Yellow River from 1986 to 2018, revealing that the directionality of community compositional transitions more strongly dictates hydrological responses than absolute vegetation states.

Objective

• To investigate variations in evapotranspiration (ET) and its components during the growing season across five alpine grassland transition types, integrating climatic, vegetation, and soil factors, to understand alpine ecosystem responses to climate change.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Source Region of the Yellow River (SRYR), alpine grasslands.
• Temporal Scale: 1986 to 2018 (growing season).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not explicitly mentioned.
• Data sources: Climatic, vegetation, and soil factors (observational data).

Main Results

• Evapotranspiration (ET) increased significantly by 1.17 mm yr⁻¹ under warming and wetting conditions, accounting for 79.39% of annual precipitation, while soil moisture declined slightly.
• A pronounced temperature–precipitation decoupling emerged between alpine meadow-origin (AM-origin) and alpine steppe-origin (AS-origin) transitions.
• Transpiration dominated ET increases, contributing over 80% in AM-origin and 100% in AS-origin transitions.
• Soil evaporation exhibited contrasting trends: decreasing in AS-origin transitions due to enhanced soil insulation, but increasing in AM-origin transitions, thereby reducing soil moisture.
• Interannual ET growth rates and seasonal fluctuations were greater in AM-origin than in AS-origin transitions.
• In AM-origin transitions, temperature primarily drove ET increases, causing soil drying (strongest in AM to TS), whereas in AS-origin transitions, precipitation dominated, resulting in soil wetting (more pronounced in AS to AM).

Contributions

• Demonstrates that the directionality of compositional transitions governs hydrological responses more strongly than absolute vegetation states.
• Provides critical insights into the differential hydrological responses of alpine grasslands to climate change driven by community composition transitions.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Guan2025Discrepant,
  author = {Guan, Shuntian and Zhang, Longyue and Xiong, Yunqi and Li, Congjia and Zheng, Zhenzhen and Huang, Shibo and Hu, Ronghai and Kang, Xiaoming and Du, Jianqin and Xue, Kai and Cui, Xiaoyong and Wang, Yanfen and Hao, Yanbin},
  title = {Discrepant Pathway in Regulating ET Under Change in Community Composition of Alpine Grassland in the Source Region of the Yellow River},
  journal = {Remote Sensing},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/rs17244046},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17244046}
}