Relationships between climate, productivity and vegetation in southern Mongolian drylands.

We assessed the relationship between open-source data on net primary production and precipitation for the southern Mongolian Gobi, and related this information to data obtained from a set of 1418 vegetation relevés sampled in the region. Gradients determining plant community diversity and composition were examined, and the relation between α-diversity and key environmental parameters was tested.The correlation between net primary production and precipitation within our working area was fairly high (r(2) = 0.66). The variance of the net primary production was related to the average annual precipitation; at sites with more than ~220 mm/a precipitation the median coefficient of variation in productivity data decreased, indicating a rather gradual shift from a non-equilibrium ecosystem towards an equilibrium ecosystem with increasing moisture. A DCA-ordination showed that the main gradient in plant community composition was closely correlated to environmental variables for altitude, precipitation and net primary production. All three parameters were also significant predictors of the species diversity. The final model, which included an additional quadratic term for longitude, predicted local plant biodiversity at r(2) = 0.57.The results can be directly applied to both resource management and nature conservation within the area. For future studies a closer focus on the characterisation of non-equilibrium rangelands based on modelled productivity layers is suggested.