Changes in the wetland vegetation growth patterns in large lakes on the Yangtze Plain

ABSTRACTIn this study, the vegetation emergence times (VET), an important phenological characteristics, were obtained for 25 large lakes on the Yangtze Plain between 2001 and 2014. This was carried out by extracting the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data using a decision tree method. This is the first comprehensive documentation of the changes in temporal and spatial distribution in wetland vegetation phenology for large lakes on the Yangtze Plain. The results showed that considerable changes in the VET occurred in 25 wetland ecosystems in the Yangtze Plain. Specifically, 76% of the lakes showed delayed trends in the VET, and 32% of them were statistically significant (p < 0.05). In contrast, 24% of the lakes displayed advanced trends in the VET and 17% of them were statistically significant (p < 0.05) over the past 14 years. An analysis of the driving factors of VET revealed that a VET change was more sensitive to ...