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Peer-reviewedCC BY-NC-NDNature Communications

Critical slowing down of semiarid vegetation resilience is amplified by intensifying heatwaves

  • Li Fu1,2
  • Jianping Huang3
  • Changyu Li1
  • Wenmin Wei4
  • Ming Peng4
  • Guolong Zhang1
  • Yu Ren4
  • Jianming Deng2
4 affiliations
  1. 1Collaborative Innovation Center for Western Ecological Safety, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
  2. 2State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
  3. 3Collaborative Innovation Center for Western Ecological Safety, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. [email protected]
  4. 4Key Laboratory for Semi-Arid Climate Change of the Ministry of Education, College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
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Abstract

Critical slowing down is commonly used as an early-warning signature of declining ecosystem resilience. While widespread greening has been documented, vegetation resilience in semiarid regions has received limited attention, and how climate extremes influence this association remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify vegetation resilience by estimating lag-1 temporal autocorrelation derived from complementary satellite vegetation metrics across global semiarid regions. We find that 56.6% of semiarid vegetated area shows increasing lag-1 temporal autocorrelation, and the spatial mean lag-1 temporal autocorrelation exhibits a sustained upward trend during 2001-2024, indicating declining resilience. Using a quadrant framework, 47.5% of vegetated area is classified as greening concurrent with declining resilience, exceeding the 33.8% showing greening with increasing resilience. Moreover, heatwaves intensified, and precipitation declined, with trend magnitudes and land-cover composition varying among greening-resilience quadrants. Spatial error models indicate that increases in maximum heatwave intensity are more strongly associated with declining resilience under drying trends, whereas this association weakens under wetting. Within-quadrant analyses further characterize conditional associations, consistent with greening-resilience decoupling under hot-dry intensification. Our findings suggest that greening can mask declining resilience, underscoring the need to integrate resilience diagnostics into routine greenness monitoring as climate extremes intensify.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{fu2026critical,
  title = {{Critical slowing down of semiarid vegetation resilience is amplified by intensifying heatwaves}},
  author = {Li Fu and Jianping Huang and Changyu Li and Wenmin Wei and Ming Peng and Guolong Zhang and Yu Ren and Jianming Deng},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  year = {2026},
  month = jul,
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-75130-5},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75130-5},
  note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Critical slowing down of semiarid vegetation resilience is amplified by intensifying heatwaves
AU  - Li Fu
AU  - Jianping Huang
AU  - Changyu Li
AU  - Wenmin Wei
AU  - Ming Peng
AU  - Guolong Zhang
AU  - Yu Ren
AU  - Jianming Deng
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/03
JO  - Nature Communications
DO  - 10.1038/s41467-026-75130-5
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75130-5
AB  - Critical slowing down is commonly used as an early-warning signature of declining ecosystem resilience. While widespread greening has been documented, vegetation resilience in semiarid regions has received limited attention, and how climate extremes influence this association remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify vegetation resilience by estimating lag-1 temporal autocorrelation derived from complementary satellite vegetation metrics across global semiarid regions. We find that 56.6% of semiarid vegetated area shows increasing lag-1 temporal autocorrelation, and the spatial mean lag-1 temporal autocorrelation exhibits a sustained upward trend during 2001-2024, indicating declining resilience. Using a quadrant framework, 47.5% of vegetated area is classified as greening concurrent with declining resilience, exceeding the 33.8% showing greening with increasing resilience. Moreover, heatwaves intensified, and precipitation declined, with trend magnitudes and land-cover composition varying among greening-resilience quadrants. Spatial error models indicate that increases in maximum heatwave intensity are more strongly associated with declining resilience under drying trends, whereas this association weakens under wetting. Within-quadrant analyses further characterize conditional associations, consistent with greening-resilience decoupling under hot-dry intensification. Our findings suggest that greening can mask declining resilience, underscoring the need to integrate resilience diagnostics into routine greenness monitoring as climate extremes intensify.
SN  - 2041-1723
ER  -