Limited climatic space for alternative ecosystem states in Africa

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Higgins, Steven I.; Conradi, Timo; Kruger, Laurence M.; 'Hara, Robert B. O.; Slingsby, Jasper A.
• 署名单位: University of Bayreuth; University of Cape Town; Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU); University of Cape Town
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-12934
• DOI: 10.1126/science.add5190
• 发表日期: 2023-06-08
• 页码: 1038-1042
• 关键词: biome states; fire; vegetation; forest; savanna; WORLD; ecology

摘要

One of the foundational premises of ecology is that climate determines ecosystems. This has been challenged by alternative ecosystem state models, which illustrate that internal ecosystem dynamics acting on the initial ecosystem state can overwhelm the influence of climate, and by observations suggesting that climate cannot reliably discriminate forest and savanna ecosystem types. Using a novel phytoclimatic transform, which estimates the ability of climate to support different types of plants, we show that climatic suitability for evergreen trees and C4 grasses are sufficient to discriminate between forest and savanna in Africa. Our findings reassert the dominant influence of climate on ecosystems and suggest that the role of feedbacks causing alternative ecosystem states is less prevalent than has been suggested.