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Differentiated seasonal vegetation cover dynamics of degraded grasslands in Inner Mongolia recorded by continuous photography technique

  • Special Issue: Asian Biometeorology (invited only)
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Abstract

Influence of climate change on the grassland phenology has attracted more and more attentions of ecologists. Although dozens of studies have been conducted, there have been few records examining the phenology differences of grasslands with different plant species compositions. Using continuous photography and image processing methods, this study examined seasonal vegetation cover dynamics of grasslands along a degradation gradient to clarify the influence of vegetation composition on the dynamics of vegetation cover during growing season. Our results revealed that phenological patterns of grasslands differentiated with their degradation status. Abandoned farmland (AF) and severely degraded grassland (SD) with most annuals and least climax species had the earliest start of growing season, while AF and extremely degraded grassland (ED) dominated by grasses had the earliest end of growing season. The start and end of growing season were strongly related to the relative cover of climax species and grasses. The results presented in this study support the possibility of using digital photography to capture the role of plant species composition on vegetation phenology in grasslands.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 41530747 and 41325002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xiaotian Xu, Hongyan Liu, Xu Liu, Zhaoliang Song, Wei Wang & Shuang Qiu

Authors
  1. Xiaotian Xu
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  2. Hongyan Liu
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  3. Xu Liu
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  4. Zhaoliang Song
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  5. Wei Wang
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  6. Shuang Qiu
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Correspondence to Hongyan Liu.

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Xu, X., Liu, H., Liu, X. et al. Differentiated seasonal vegetation cover dynamics of degraded grasslands in Inner Mongolia recorded by continuous photography technique. Int J Biometeorol 63, 671–677 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1358-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1358-5

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