Exploring the long-term vegetation dynamics of different ecological zones in the farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China

The vegetation in the farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China is influenced by both natural and anthropogenic factors and has undergone drastic changes in the past decades. The farming-pastoral ecotone is the transition zone from agriculture to animal husbandry. The ecological environment of this ecotone is complex and fragile. Most researches have primarily focused on the entire farming-pastoral ecotone, seldomly considering the differences between different ecological zones characterized by soil, climate, and biome conditions. Based on the long time series of leaf area index (LAI) data, meteorological data, and land-use dataset, this study analyzed LAI variation trends, the correlations between LAI and climate factors, and the impact of land-use type change on vegetation in the farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China. Moreover, this paper makes a full study of the changes of the whole study area from the perspective of the differences between different ecological zones. The results showed that over 36 years, areas with vegetation improvements were considerably larger than those with degradations. However, there were still 49.56% of the total area showing no significant vegetation change. There are differences in vegetation change and response to climate between the forest ecological zones and the grassland ecological zones. The vegetation improvement trends of the forest ecological zones were larger and more sensitive to temperature, while the vegetation improvements of the grassland ecological zones were relatively small, and were more sensitive to precipitation. Human activities promote LAI changes in areas close to the forest ecological zones. The change of land use indicates that the decrease of the overall natural vegetation area has not resulted in decreasing LAI. And there is a growing trend of woodland area in the grassland ecological zones. The study provides a theoretical basis for the management of the environment and vegetation in the farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China.