High Ecosystem Stability Under Drought Events in National Nature Reserves in China’s Forest Ecosystem

Forest-type national nature reserves and their surrounding areas have experienced a series of drought events, which have influenced forest ecosystem stability. Assuming that drought events do not cause a shift in the ecosystem’s stable state, we quantified the stability of forest ecosystems in China’s national nature reserves and their surrounding areas in response to drought events from 2000 to 2018, using satellite-observed Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) data. We further examined differences in ecosystem stability across regions and forest types, and identified the impacts of environmental factors using correlation analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and random forest models. The results show that both national nature reserves and their surrounding areas primarily experienced single, moderate-intensity drought events, most of which occurred in spring and summer. Compared with surrounding areas, national nature reserves exhibited higher ecosystem stability, with a mean drought resistance index of 31.45 ± 21.09. The difference in ecosystem stability between reserves and their surrounding areas was most pronounced in deciduous forests, which was attributed to their high hydraulic conductivity and distinctive leaf phenological traits. Additionally, climatic factors were the dominant drivers of both resistance and recovery rate, each contributing more than 30% to the overall explained variance. Our results provide valuable guidance for enhancing drought resilience and promoting the sustainable management of China’s national forest reserves.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Forests

• Publication date

  2025-11-12

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/f16111716
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Warming accelerates global drought severity

  2025cited by this paper
• Mixed evergreen and deciduous forests boost local climate resilience, nutrient dynamics, and photosynthetic performance assessed by remote sensing

  2025cited by this paper
• Impact of Extreme Drought on Waterbird Abundance: A Case Study Based on the Core Nature Reserve and Surrounding Wetlands

  2025cited by this paper
• Impacts of nature reserves on water–carbon relations and drought recovery time of ecosystems in the Yellow River Basin of China

  2025cited by this paper
• An evaluation of the alignment of drought policy and planning guidelines with the contemporary disaster risk reduction agenda

  2025cited by this paper
• Anthropogenic climate change doubled the frequency of compound drought and heatwaves in low-income regions

  2024cited by this paper
• Deciphering the influence of climate change and human activities on the drought propagation

  2024cited by this paper
• Wildlife resource conservation and utilization for achieving sustainable development in China: main barriers and problem identification

  2023cited by this paper
• Structural complexity biases vegetation greenness measures

  2023cited by this paper
• Assessing the conservation effectiveness of national nature reserves in China

  2023cited by this paper
• The role of nature reserves in conservation effectiveness of ecosystem services in China.

  2023cited by this paper
• Spatiotemporal patterns of net primary productivity of subtropical forests in China and its response to drought.

  2023cited by this paper
• Environmental conditions are the dominant factor influencing stability of terrestrial ecosystems on the Tibetan plateau

  2023cited by this paper
• Analysis on the ecosystem service protection effect of national nature reserve in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from weight perspective

  2022cited by this paper
• Tropical tree mortality has increased with rising atmospheric water stress

  2022cited by this paper
• Drought legacies and ecosystem responses to subsequent drought

  2022cited by this paper
• Warming reduces global agricultural production by decreasing cropping frequency and yields

  2022cited by this paper
• High resistance of deciduous forests and high recovery rate of evergreen forests under moderate droughts in China

  2022influential reference
• Biodiversity loss and climate extremes — study the feedbacks

  2022cited by this paper
• The greater resilience of mixed forests to drought mainly depends on their composition: Analysis along a climate gradient across Europe

  2021cited by this paper
• Soil moisture–atmosphere feedback dominates land carbon uptake variability

  2021cited by this paper
• Accuracy Assessment of the SPEI, RDI and SPI Drought Indices in Regions of Iran with Different Climate Conditions

  2021cited by this paper
• Nominally protected buffer zones around tropical protected areas are as highly degraded as the wider unprotected countryside

  2021cited by this paper
• The effects of varying drought-heat signatures on terrestrial carbon dynamics and vegetation composition

  2021cited by this paper
• The multi-dimensional perspective of ecological security evaluation and drive mechanism for Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve, China

  2021cited by this paper
• Tropical Dry Forest Resilience to Fire Depends on Fire Frequency and Climate

  2021cited by this paper
• Quantifying large‐scale ecosystem stability with remote sensing data

  2020cited by this paper
• Drought vulnerability among China's ungulates and mitigation offered by protected areas

  2020cited by this paper
• Drought response strategies of deciduous and evergreen woody species in a seasonally dry neotropical forest

  2020cited by this paper
• A first assessment of the impact of the extreme 2018 summer drought on Central European forests

  2020cited by this paper
• Development of China’s nature reserves over the past 60 years: An overview

  2019cited by this paper
• High ecosystem stability of evergreen broadleaf forests under severe droughts

  2019influential reference
• Global radiation, photosynthetically active radiation, and the diffuse component dataset of China, 1981–2010

  2018cited by this paper
• Drought timing influences the legacy of tree growth recovery

  2018cited by this paper
• Towards a Comparable Quantification of Resilience.

  2018cited by this paper
• Drought characteristics over China during 1980–2015

  2018cited by this paper
• Drought losses in China might double between the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming

  2018influential reference
• Soil chemistry and microbial community functional responses to invasive shrub removal in mixed hardwood forests

  2018cited by this paper
• Climate legacies drive global soil carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems

  2017cited by this paper
• Light-driven growth in Amazon evergreen forests explained by seasonal variations of vertical canopy structure

  2017cited by this paper
• An interpolated temperature and precipitation dataset at 1-km grid resolution in China (2000 – 2012)

  2017cited by this paper
• Capacity shortfalls hinder the performance of marine protected areas globally

  2017cited by this paper
• Assessing European ecosystem stability to drought in the vegetation growing season

  2016cited by this paper
• The effectiveness of the zoning of China's protected areas

  2016cited by this paper
• Assessment of effectiveness of nature reserves on the Tibetan Plateau based on net primary production and the large sample comparison method

  2016cited by this paper
• Does leaf shedding protect stems from cavitation during seasonal droughts? A test of the hydraulic fuse hypothesis.

  2016cited by this paper
• Mapping tree density at a global scale

  2015cited by this paper
• Enhancing phytolith carbon sequestration in rice ecosystems through basalt powder amendment

  2015cited by this paper
• Projected impacts of climate change on protected birds and nature reserves in China

  2015influential reference
• Tree mortality from drought, insects, and their interactions in a changing climate.

  2015cited by this paper
• Projected strengthening of Amazonian dry season by constrained climate model simulations

  2015cited by this paper
• Global patterns of drought recovery

  2015cited by this paper
• A model quantifying global vegetation resistance and resilience to short‐term climate anomalies and their relationship with vegetation cover

  2015cited by this paper
• Effectiveness of China's National Forest Protection Program and nature reserves

  2015cited by this paper
• Abrupt shifts in phenology and vegetation productivity under climate extremes

  2015cited by this paper
• Drought footprint on European ecosystems between 1999 and 2010 assessed by remotely sensed vegetation phenology and productivity

  2014cited by this paper
• Impacts of climate change on ecosystem in Priority Areas of Biodiversity Conservation in China

  2014cited by this paper
• Widespread decline of Congo rainforest greenness in the past decade

  2014cited by this paper
• A Drought Monitoring and Forecasting System for Sub-Sahara African Water Resources and Food Security

  2014cited by this paper
• Tree diversity does not always improve resistance of forest ecosystems to drought

  2014cited by this paper
• Diverse responses of forest growth to drought time‐scales in the Northern Hemisphere

  2014cited by this paper
• Mapping forest stand age in China using remotely sensed forest height and observation data

  2014cited by this paper
• Evaluation of changes in ecological security in China’s Qinghai Lake Basin from 2000 to 2013 and the relationship to land use and climate change

  2014cited by this paper
• Ecosystem resilience despite large-scale altered hydroclimatic conditions

  2013cited by this paper
• Increased dry-season length over southern Amazonia in recent decades and its implication for future climate projection

  2013cited by this paper
• Effectiveness of Nature Reserve System for Conserving Tropical Forests: A Statistical Evaluation of Hainan Island, China

  2013cited by this paper
• [Staged strategy of plants in response to drought stress].

  2012cited by this paper
• Different Drought-adaptation Strategies as Characterized by Hydraulic and Water-relations Traits of Evergreen and Deciduous Figs in a Tropical Karst Forest

  2012cited by this paper
• Response of vegetation to drought time-scales across global land biomes

  2012cited by this paper
• The trade-off between safety and efficiency in hydraulic architecture in 31 woody species in a karst area.

  2011cited by this paper
• Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests

  2011cited by this paper
• Hydraulics and life history of tropical dry forest tree species: coordination of species' drought and shade tolerance.

  2011cited by this paper
• Diversity enhances community recovery, but not resistance, after drought

  2010cited by this paper
• A review of drought concepts

  2010cited by this paper
• Assessing the impact of ecological and economic factors on land degradation vulnerability through multiway analysis

  2009cited by this paper
• Inter-species variation of photosynthetic and xylem hydraulic traits in the deciduous and evergreen Euphorbiaceae tree species from a seasonally tropical forest in south-western China

  2008cited by this paper
• Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?

  2008cited by this paper
• Estimates of reserve effectiveness are confounded by leakage.

  2008cited by this paper
• Delayed leaf senescence induces extreme drought tolerance in a flowering plant

  2007cited by this paper
• Poverty and corruption compromise tropical forest reserves.

  2007cited by this paper
• Differences in Spatial Patterns of Drought on Different Time Scales: An Analysis of the Iberian Peninsula

  2006cited by this paper
• Conservation of Functional Wetland Area and Compensation for the Ecological Function of Wetland in Honghe National Nature Reserve in China

  2006cited by this paper
• Global Consequences of Land Use

  2005cited by this paper
• Validation of five global radiation models with measured daily data in China

  2004cited by this paper
• Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the MODIS vegetation indices

  2002cited by this paper
• Ecological Resilience—In Theory and Application

  2000cited by this paper
• The complexity and stability of ecosystems

  1984cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.