Self-adaptive trade-offs between growth and carbon storage in dominant desert shrubs mediated by gradient of environmental stresses

Dominant shrub species in temperate deserts exhibit specialized adaptations and divergent evolutionary strategies in response to varying and extreme environmental stresses. However, it remains unclear how shrub species balance growth and carbon storage to cope with abiotic combined stresses across extensive spatiotemporal gradients. Guided by the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere Continuum (SPAC) theory and combined with a 20-year monitoring of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), we conducted extensive field surveys across a representative temperate desert area. Using ensemble learning on 60 integrated environmental variables, the region was automatically classified into four SPAC systems that reflect gradients of combined temperature, precipitation, radiation, soil properties, and other factors. Results revealed divergent trade-offs between growth and carbon storage of shrubs mediated by intensity and combination of stresses. Shrubs in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau faced severe temperature-water stres..., Study area
The field sampling regions are mainly situated in the desert region of central Asia, spanning 37 degrees of longitude and 20 degrees of latitude, stretching from 78° E, 32° N to 115° E, 52° N. This expansive area encompasses several typical temperate deserts, arranged from west to east: Gurbantunggut desert, Taklamakan desert, Kumtag desert, Qaidam desert, Badain Jaran desert, Tengger desert, Ulan Buh desert, Kubuqi desert, Mu Us sandy land and Hunshandake sandy land. The orientation of the sample zone ran from northwest to southeast, essentially perpendicular to the precipitation contour in the northwest desert region of China. Within this region, the average annual precipitation exhibited considerable variation, ranging from 40 mm to 394 mm. The average annual temperature spanned from 4.32 ℃ to 9.79 ℃.
Crucially, the remote and largely uninhabited nature of these deserts makes them an unparalleled natural laboratory. Having grown quietly for millennia across these diverse l..., # Self-adaptive trade-offs between growth and carbon storage in dominant desert shrubs mediated by gradient of environmental stresses

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.ffbg79d61](10.5061/dryad.ffbg79d61)

## Description of the data and file structure

#### This collection includes the following contents:

* NSC data, shrub volume data, 60 environmental variables, and VPD data for each sampling site.
* Potential distribution maps of dominant desert shrubs.
* Spatial distribution maps of NSC content in dominant desert shrubs from 2003 to 2022.
* R code for analyzing NSC data.
* Python code for SPAC-UMAP.
* Python code for the U-Net model.

### Files and variables

##### File: Shrub_data.xlsx

**Description:** 

The dataset includes NSC measurements of desert shrubs, shrub volume data, 60 environmental variables (encompassing soil properties, climatic factors, topographic features, and other ecological indicators), Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) data, and GOSIF (Global OCO-2 Solar-Induced Chlorop...,