期刊
ECOLOGY
卷 97, 期 9, 页码 2518-2521出版社
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/ecy.1470
关键词
alternative stable states; climate change; desert; rainforest; remote sensing; savanna; tree cover
类别
资金
- European Research Council (ERC) under ERC [268732]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41271197]
- China Scholarship Council
- SENSE Research School
- EU FP7 project BACCHUS [603445]
- EU FP7 project LUC4C [603542]
- European Research Council (ERC) [268732] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
Although canopy height has long been a focus of interest in ecology, it has remained difficult to study at large spatial scales. Recently, satellite-borne LiDAR equipment produced the first systematic high resolution maps of vegetation height worldwide. Here we show that this new resource reveals three marked modes in tropical canopy height similar to 40, similar to 12, and similar to 2 m corresponding to forest, savanna, and treeless landscapes. The distribution of these modes is consistent with the often hypothesized forest-savanna bistability and suggests that both states can be stable in areas with a mean annual precipitation between similar to 1,500 and similar to 2,000 mm. Although the canopy height states correspond largely to the much discussed tree cover states, there are differences, too. For instance, there are places with savanna-like sparse tree cover that have a forest-like high canopy, suggesting that rather than true savanna, those are thinned relicts of forest. This illustrates how complementary sets of remotely sensed indicators may provide increasingly sophisticated ways to study ecological phenomena at a global scale.
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