Reforestation enhanced landscape connectivity for thermal buffering in China

Abstract

Deforestation-induced landscape fragmentation causes habitat loss and isolation, modifies local climate, and therefore threatens biodiversity. While, on the contrary, how large-scale reforestation may improve the connectivity and thermal buffers of habitats is not well understood. We show that decades long large-scale reforestation in China has effectively increased the size and connectivity of forest patches by gradually filling gaps among isolated patches and creating more core forests. The core forests have a stronger capacity to cool the land surface, leading to a daily mean cooling effect of −0.42 ± 0.23 °C relative to nearby marginal forests. Moreover, the core forests reduce diurnal range and seasonal variation of land surface temperature by 1.41 ± 0.23 °C and 0.42 ± 0.55 °C, respectively, relative to nearby marginal forests. The thermal buffering capacity of large size core forest (>100 km²) is more than twice that of small size (⩽10 km²). Despite their relatively low thermal buffering capacity, the marginal forests contribute about 73% to the increase of forest area in China during the last two decades and create buffer zones for the core forests to resist external disturbances, maintaining the internal stability of the forest ecosystem. We highlight that improving the integrity and connectivity of the forests with ecological restoration and succession can further enhance potential of forests to buffer local thermal environment under the current reforestation efforts, and thereby providing better connected thermal habitats for species to survive under climate change.