Are regional precipitation–productivity relationships robust to decadal-scale dry period?

Abstract Precipitation (PPT) is the primary climatic determinant of plant growth and aboveground net productivity (ANPP) for many world’s major terrestrial ecosystems. Thus, relationships between PPT can provide insight into how changes in climate may alter ecosystem functions globally. Spatial PPT–ANPP grasslands are found remarkably similar around world, but whether they change during periods extended anomalies remain unknown. Here, we quantified regional-scale PPT-ANPP vary an wet a dry period by taking advantage 35-year record NDVI (as surrogate ANPP) at 1700 sites temperate northern China. We sharp decrease strength spatial relationship 11-year below average PPT. attributed collapse this to asynchrony responses different grassland types decadal increased aridity. Our results challenge robustness regional PPT–productivity if aridity globally change.