Assessing climate-driven ecohydrological effects on altitudinal vegetation belt dynamics in the Bogda natural world heritage site, northwestern China

作者：Zihao Yuan, Fandi Luo, Naying Chai, Yuhui Chen, Meng Zhu, Yingqing Su, Z ZHANG, Zhanyuan Chen, Yongsheng Xiao, Xinjun Zheng, Shengchuan Tian, B Zhang, Xinwei Yin · 发表于：Ecological Indicators · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.115251 · 研究领域：Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Soil Moisture and Remote Sensing

Climate change is profoundly altering altitudinal vegetation belt regimes in global mountain ecosystems, yet the ecohydrological mechanisms underlying these alterations remain poorly quantified. The Bogda Natural World Heritage Site on the Tianshan Mountains in northwestern China, preserves a complete altitudinal vegetation belt spectrum from desert steppe to alpine meadow, offering an ideal natural experimental area to disentangle climate-driven ecohydrological controls and consequences across elevation gradients. Here, using field comprehensive measurements in conjunction with stochastic ecohydrological modelling approaches, we find that soil and river properties shift nonlinearly along the elevation gradient. Soil moisture increases and soil temperature decreases with elevation, while soil pH and electrical conductivity each follow unimodal distributions peaking at the montane coniferous forest belt. River pH and electrical conductivity decrease with elevation, whereas dissolved oxygen peaks in the desert grassland zone, and suspended solids and turbidity spike at the subalpine alpine meadow transition. Aboveground biomass is controlled primarily by temperature and precipitation, whereas belowground biomass is governed mainly by soil properties. Critically, water‑carbon coupling shifts across vegetation belts, with desert and montane grasslands being water-limited, whereas coniferous forest, subalpine and alpine meadows are energy-limited. Increased rainfall frequency enha...