Influences of drought on the stability of an alpine meadow ecosystem

ABSTRACT Drought plays a prominent role in affecting ecosystem stability and ecosystem productivity. Based on eddy covariance and climatic observations during 2012–2020, the Fisher discriminant analysis method was employed to accurately detect drought occurrences. Furthermore, the ecosystem water sensitivity and its resistance to drought were quantified to evaluate the ecosystem stability. The results showed that the alpine meadow suffered drought most frequently at the beginning of the growing seasons. However, drought during the peak growing seasons reduced the gross primary productivity (GPP) the most, by 30.5 ± 15.2%. In the middle of the peak growing seasons, the ecosystem water sensitivity was weak, and thus, the resistance to drought was strong, which resulted in high ecosystem stability. At the beginning and end of the peak growing seasons, the ecosystem stability was relatively weak. Ecosystem stability was positively related to the corresponding multiyear average soil water content (SWC ave ). However, drought occurring during high SWC ave periods led to larger reductions in GPP, which indicated that the inhibitory effects of drought on ecosystems were more dependent on the occurrence time of droughts than on ecosystem stability.