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Climate change‐induced vegetation shifts lead to more ecological droughts despite projected rainfall increases in many global temperate drylands

Overview of attention for article published in Global Change Biology, March 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (86th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (57th percentile)

Mentioned by

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19 X users
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2 Facebook pages
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Readers on

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232 Mendeley
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Title
Climate change‐induced vegetation shifts lead to more ecological droughts despite projected rainfall increases in many global temperate drylands
Published in
Global Change Biology, March 2017
DOI 10.1111/gcb.13598
Pubmed ID
Authors

Britta Tietjen, Daniel R. Schlaepfer, John B. Bradford, William K. Lauenroth, Sonia A. Hall, Michael C. Duniway, Tamara Hochstrasser, Gensuo Jia, Seth M. Munson, David A. Pyke, Scott D. Wilson

Abstract

Drylands occur world-wide and are particularly vulnerable to climate change since dryland ecosystems depend directly on soil water availability that may become increasingly limited as temperatures rise. Climate change will both directly impact soil water availability, and also change plant biomass, with resulting indirect feedbacks on soil moisture. Thus, the net impact of direct and indirect climate change effects on soil moisture requires better understanding. We used the ecohydrological simulation model SOILWAT at sites from temperate dryland ecosystems around the globe to disentangle the contributions of direct climate change effects and of additional indirect, climate change-induced changes in vegetation on soil water availability. We simulated current and future climate conditions projected by 16 GCMs under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 for the end of the century. We determined shifts in water availability due to climate change alone and due to combined changes of climate and the growth form and biomass of vegetation. Vegetation change will mostly exacerbate low soil water availability in regions already expected to suffer from negative direct impacts of climate change (with the two RCP scenarios giving us qualitatively similar effects). By contrast, in regions that will likely experience increased water availability due to climate change alone, vegetation changes will counteract these increases due to increased water losses by interception. In only a small minority of locations, climate change induced vegetation changes may lead to a net increase in water availability. These results suggest that changes in vegetation in response to climate change may exacerbate drought conditions and may dampen the effects of increased precipitation, i.e. leading to more ecological droughts despite higher precipitation in some regions. Our results underscore the value of considering indirect effects of climate change on vegetation when assessing future soil moisture conditions in water-limited ecosystems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 19 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 232 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 231 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 46 20%
Student > Ph. D. Student 38 16%
Student > Master 31 13%
Student > Bachelor 14 6%
Professor > Associate Professor 13 6%
Other 33 14%
Unknown 57 25%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 62 27%
Environmental Science 57 25%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 21 9%
Engineering 7 3%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 2%
Other 14 6%
Unknown 66 28%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 November 2019.
All research outputs
#2,456,077
of 26,017,215 outputs
Outputs from Global Change Biology
#3,105
of 6,765 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#44,691
of 328,822 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Global Change Biology
#45
of 105 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,017,215 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,765 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 34.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 54% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 328,822 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 105 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 57% of its contemporaries.