Declining Tradeoff Between Resistance and Resilience of Ecosystems to Drought

Resistance and resilience are widely used to characterize ecosystem drought stability. Tradeoff between resistance and resilience have been reported, but its long-term trends remain uncertain at global scale. Based on remotely sensed vegetation indices, we assessed the spatiotemporal dynamics of drought resistance and resilience. Result revealed that there was a significant decline in the tradeoff between resistance and resilience, corresponding to a substantial increase in the proportion of areas with high resistance-high resilience or low resistance-low resilience. In the South Sahel, South Africa and Central China, the increased precipitation and vegetation coverage contribute to enhanced drought stability constructed by resistance and resilience; while rising temperature, decreased water availability and deforestation lead to declined stability in northeastern North America, South America and the Congo region. Increases in the areas with low resistance-low resilience resulting from declining tradeoffs warn of increased regional ecosystem vulnerability. Drought resistance and resilience describe the two aspects of stability, and the tradeoff between the two describes the drought response patterns of ecosystems with high resistance-low resilience or low resistance-high resilience. Under global change, the tradeoff has declined significantly over the past few decades, corresponding to substantial increases in the proportion of areas with low resistance-low resilience, implying a decrease in drought stability. Here we innovatively assess the changes in the tradeoff between resistance and resilience, highlighting the negative impact of rising temperature, decreasing water availability and deforestation on drought stability. The tradeoff between resistance and resilience has declined significantly over the past three decades Increases in the proportion of areas with low resistance -low resilience reflected the reduced stability of ecosystem to droughts Attribution analysis showed that rising temperature, decreasing water availability and deforestation led to the decreases in stability