Precipitation seasonality and soil texture interact to shape dryland recovery from severe disturbance

Abstract

Disturbances drive large changes in plant composition and ecosystem functioning in drylands, but current understanding of how recovery following disturbance depends on the environment is limited due to challenges in analyzing effects of disparate disturbances across abiotic gradients. Here we combine remote sensing and field observations across 5600+ km of natural gas pipeline corridors and adjacent undisturbed vegetation to investigate how recovery from a uniform, severe disturbance varies with factors that influence water availability in drylands. We found that NPP recovery often remains incomplete (42% of sites), except in cold precipitation regimes with low precipitation, and recovery of total shrub cover (median timing of 81 years) was faster on fine-textured soils. Locations with quick recovery of shrub cover were linked with a shift in dominant shrub species and incomplete NPP recovery. Our results indicate that drylands with high productivity or shrub cover are most vulnerable to severe disturbance.