Drought-induced ecosystem resistance and recovery observed at 118 flux tower stations across the globe

Abstract

Drought resistance and drought recovery are important metrics of ecosystems in responding to extreme climate events. However, it remains unclear how drought resistance and drought recovery vary across different ecosystems and whether an internal relationship exists between them. Here, we used observed evapotranspiration and gross primary productivity from 118 flux tower stations worldwide to investigate drought resilience in nine ecosystems. Our results show that drought resistance is higher for evergreen forests but lower for croplands and shrublands. Overall, the ecosystem recovery times ranged from 4.1 to 6.7 months, with a monthly recovery rate ranging from 8.5% to 24.4%. Drought resistance had a negative relationship (R² = 0.61-0.67, p ≤ 0.01) with the drought recovery rate for the nine selected ecosystems, particularly under mild and moderate drought events. This is beneficial for narrowing the difference in recovery time between ecosystems. Our results provide insights for understanding ecosystem behaviors under climate extremes.