Shifting resilience: Trends and predictors of mesic resource productivity in western U.S. rangelands

Abstract

Mesic resources, the late-season herbaceous vegetation found in riparian areas and wet meadows, provide disproportionately important forage and habitat across western U.S. rangelands, yet their response to climatic variability and anthropogenic influences remains poorly understood. Using a 40-year Landsat time series (1984–2023), we quantified trends in late-season productivity (NDVI) across 4.3 million hectares of the sagebrush biome and applied random forest models to distinguish between temporal and spatial predictors of mesic resource productivity. We identified a shift in how mesic resources respond to drought: from 1984 to 2003, mesic productivity was largely explained by drought severity (Palmer Drought Severity Index, R² = 0.92), but this relationship weakened in the next two decades (2004-2023; R² = 0.55), during which time productivity increased despite persistent drought. Temporal modeling identified rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations as the strongest predictor of this shift, consistent with enhanced plant water-use efficiency under CO2 fertilization. Spatially, large agricultural valley floodplains act as anthropogenic refugia, sustaining productive mesic resources through flood irrigation and subsequent groundwater recharge into late summer. These findings suggest that human water management and physiological shifts in vegetation are currently buffering mesic systems against meteorological drought throughout U.S. rangelands.  However, this apparent buffering is spatially heterogeneous and may mask vulnerability to groundwater depletion, shifts in precipitation regimes, and woody encroachment. Sustaining these vital ecosystems will require local conservation approaches that go beyond climate monitoring to include balanced management considering both agricultural and ecological water needs and constraints.