Zhongqing Yan

Adaptive environmental management requires identifying not only where multiple ecosystem services are currently concentrated, but also where their coordination is likely to persist or deteriorate under future environmental change. However, scenario-based assessments rarely translate changes in ecosystem-service multifunctionality and synergy stability into spatially explicit management priorities. Here, we developed an integrated framework linking future climate and land-use scenarios, ecosystem-service assessment, multifunctional bundles, synergy dynamics, and stability–risk zoning. We quantified carbon storage (CS), habitat quality (HQ), soil conservation (SC), and water conservation depth (WCD) on the Zoige Plateau for 2000, 2010, and 2020, and projected their responses under SSP126, SSP245, and SSP585 through 2060 using CMIP6 climate forcing, PLUS land-use simulation, and InVEST. CS and HQ showed the strongest and most persistent synergy, with Spearman’s ρ increasing from 0.66 in 2000 to 0.70 in 2020. Future multifunctionality was strongly scenario dependent. SSP126 better maintained high-multifunctionality areas and dominant service synergies, whereas SSP585 reduced high-multifunctionality areas and weakened CS–HQ and WCD–SC correlations to 0.46 and 0.36, respectively. Integrating current service bundles, hotspot significance, and scenario-dependent bundle transitions produced six conservation function areas, two protection classes, and five stability–risk zones. These spatial layers distinguish areas requiring immediate protection, restoration, high-emission risk mitigation, or long-term monitoring. The framework provides a structured approach for converting scenario-dependent changes in ecosystem-service coordination into adaptive conservation priorities in climate-sensitive multifunctional landscapes.

Peatlands act as an important sink of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Yet, they are highly sensitive to climate change, especially to extreme drought. The changes in the net ecosystem CO₂ exchange (NEE) under extreme drought events, and the driving function of microbial enzymatic genes involved in soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition, are still unclear. Herein we investigated the effects of extreme drought events in different periods of plant growth season at Zoige peatland on NEE and microbial enzymatic genes of SOM decomposition after 5 years. The results showed that the NEE of peatland decreased significantly by 48% and 26% on average (n = 12, P < 0.05) under the early and midterm extreme drought, respectively. The microbial enzymatic genes abundance of SOM decomposition showed the same decreasing trend under early and midterm extreme drought, but an increasing trend under late extreme drought. The microbial community that contributes to these degradation genes mainly derives from Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. NEE was mainly affected by soil hydrothermal factors and gross primary productivity but weakly correlated with SOM enzymatic decomposition genes. Soil microbial respiration showed a positive correlation with microbial enzymatic genes involved in the decomposition of labile carbon (n = 18, P < 0.05). This study provided new insights into the responses of the microbial decomposition potential of SOM and ecosystem CO₂ sink function to extreme drought events in the alpine peatland.

Alpine peatlands are recognized as a weak or negligible source of nitrous oxide (N2O). Anthropogenic activities and climate change resulted in the altered water table (WT) levels and increased nitrogen (N) deposition, which could potentially transition this habitat into a N2O emission hotspot. However, the underlying mechanism related with the effects is still uncertain. Hence, we conducted a mesocosm experiment to address the response of growing-season N2O emissions and the gene abundances of nitrification (bacterial amoA) and denitrification (narG, nirS, norB and nosZ) to the increased N deposition (20 kg N ha-1 yr-1) at two WT levels (WT-30, 30 cm below soil surface; WT10, 10 cm above soil surface) in the Zoige alpine peatland, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The results showed that the WT did not affect N2O emissons, and this was attributed with the limitation of soil NO3-. The higher WT level increased denitrification (narG and nirS gene abundance) resulting in the depletion of soil NO3-, but the consequent NO3- deficiency further limited denitrificaition, while the WT did not affect nitrification (bacterial amoA gene abundance). Meanwhile, the N deposition increased N2O emissions, regardless of WT levels. This was associated with the N-deposition induced increase in denitrification-related gene abundances of narG, nirS, norB and nosZ at WT-30 and narG at WT10. Additionally, the N2O emission factor assigned to N deposition was 1.3% at WT-30 and 0.9% at WT10, respectively. Our study provided comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms referring N2O emissions in response to the interactions between climate change and human disturbance from this high-altitude peatland.