ArticleNature communications2025
Vegetation cover change as a growing driver of global leaf area index dynamics.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Phenological fluctuations induce seasonal asymmetric warming in boreal forests.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Lengthened autumn growing season contributes substantially to Earth's greening.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Divergent impacts of temperature and precipitation changes on leaf area index of deciduous broadleaf and needleleaf forests in the Northern Hemisphere.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Vegetation cover change as a growing driver of global leaf area index dynamics.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The ongoing four-decade increase in global leaf area index (LAI), inferred from satellite observations, suggests enhanced carbon sequestration and evaporative cooling with potential benefits that may help mitigate climate warming. However, the role of vegetation cover change in driving these trends remains debated, raising concerns about the potential effects of reforestation and deforestation on ecosystem-climate interactions. Here, we develop a data-driven framework combining satellite-based observations to quantify the contributions of vegetation cover change to LAI dynamics across space and time. We find that vegetation cover change explains 18.1 ± 5.9% of the observed LAI increase since the 1980s, with pronounced contribution from increased tree cover primarily occurring in the northern hemisphere (33.8 ± 3.6%), partially offset by deforestation mainly taking place in the southern hemisphere (-15.7 ± 3.1%). Increases are most prominent in forestation regions such as China and Europe, while the sensitivity, defined as LAI change per unit percentage of tree cover gain, is lower than declines induced by deforestation in tropical areas. Our findings reveal that vegetation cover change is already, and increasingly, shaping global LAI dynamics to a greater extent than previously recognized, with important implications for future LAI trajectory projections, model development, and climate mitigation policies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.