Vegetation Change and Its Response to Climate Change between 2000 and 2016 in Marshes of the Songnen Plain, Northeast China

Abstract

Songnen Plain is a representative semi-arid marshland in China. The Songnen Plain marshes have undergone obvious loss during the past decades. In order to protect and restore wetland vegetation, it is urgent to investigate the vegetation change and its response to climate change in the Songnen Plain marshes. Based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and climate data, we investigated the spatiotemporal change of vegetation and its relationship with temperature and precipitation in the Songnen Plain marshes. During 2000–2016, the growing season mean NDVI of the Songnen Plain marshes significantly (p < 0.01) increased at a rate of 0.06/decade. For the climate change effects on vegetation, the growing season precipitation had a significant positive effect on the growing season NDVI of marshes. In addition, this study first found asymmetric effects of daytime maximum temperature (Tmax) and nighttime minimum temperature (Tmin) on NDVI of the Songnen Plain marshes: The growing season NDVI correlated negatively with Tmax but positively with Tmin. Considering the global asymmetric warming of Tmax and Tmin, more attention should be paid to these asymmetric effects of Tmax and Tmin on the vegetation of marshes.