Temporal Variation and Factors Influencing the Stability of NPP in Chinese Shrubland Ecosystems

Given the importance of net primary productivity (NPP) as an indicator of ecosystem productivity and its role in the global carbon cycle, understanding the factors that influence its stability can greatly improve our understanding of shrubland ecosystems and their response to global change. Between 2015 and 2022, we visited most of the primary shrubland in China and surveyed 751 shrubland patches. We collected data on community structure (canopy cover), shrub and herb species diversity, and soil physicochemical properties (soil nitrogen content and soil phosphorus content). We also used remote sensing data to obtain NPP from 2001 to 2022. We quantified temporal trends in shrubland stability in China and used structural equation modeling to disentangle the direct and indirect effects of climate, soil, and shrub community structural properties. We found that 85.3% of China’s shrublands remained stable in terms of productivity from 2001 to 2022, 10.6% of the shrublands increased in stability, and 4.1% of the shrublands need to be alerted to a significant decrease in stability. These changes in stability were mainly related to precipitation changes. We found that changes in precipitation directly affected the stability of net productivity and also indirectly through changes in shrub cover and species richness. Some aspects of community structure moderated these effects. We further found that the portion of shrubland with an upward trend in stability did not have a significant correlation between the stability of net primary productivity and community structure and soil N. Instead, soil phosphorus was the largest direct influence.