In water‐limited dryland ecosystems of the Western United States, climate change is intensifying the impacts of heat, drought, and wildfire. Disturbances often lead to increased abundance of invasive species, in part, because dryland restoration and rehabilitation are inhibited by limited moisture and infrequent plant recruitment events. Information on ecological resilience to disturbance (recovery potential) and resistance to invasive species can aid in addressing these challenges by informing long‐term restoration and conservation planning. Here, we quantified the impacts of projected future climate on ecological resilience and invasion resistance (R&R) in the sagebrush region using novel algorithms based on ecologically relevant and climate‐sensitive predictors of climate and ecological drought. We used a process‐based ecohydrological model to project these predictor variables and resulting R&R indicators for two future climate scenarios and 20 climate models. Results suggested widespread future R&R decreases (24%–34% of the 1.16 million km2 study area) that are generally consistent among climate models. Variables related to rising temperatures were most strongly linked to decreases in R&R indicators. New continuous R&R indices quantified responses to climate change; particularly useful for areas without projected change in the R&R category but where R&R still may decrease, for example, some of the areas with a historically low R&R category. Additionally, we found that areas currently characterized as having high sagebrush ecological integrity had the largest areal percentage with expected declines in R&R in the future, suggesting continuing declines in sagebrush ecosystems. One limitation of these R&R projections was relatively novel future climatic conditions in particularly hot and dry areas that were underrepresented in the training data. Including more data from these areas in future updates could further improve the reliability of the projections. Overall, these projected future declines in R&R highlight a growing challenge for natural resource managers in the region, and the resulting spatially explicit datasets provide information that can improve long‐term risk assessments, prioritizations, and climate adaptation efforts.

中文翻译：

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美国鼠尾草地区气候变化下生态恢复力和抗入侵能力下降


在美国西部缺水的旱地生态系统中，气候变化正在加剧高温、干旱和野火的影响。干扰通常会导致入侵物种的数量增加，部分原因是缺水地区的恢复和恢复受到有限的水分和不频繁的植物补充活动的抑制。有关生态对干扰的适应力（恢复潜力）和对入侵物种的抵抗力的信息可以通过为长期恢复和保护计划提供信息来帮助应对这些挑战。在这里，我们使用基于气候和生态干旱的生态相关和气候敏感预测因子的新算法量化了预测的未来气候对鼠尾草地区生态恢复力和抗入侵性 （R&R） 的影响。我们使用基于过程的生态水文模型来预测这些预测变量和由此产生的 R&R 指标，用于两种未来的气候情景和 20 个气候模型。结果表明，未来 R&R 普遍减少（116 万 km2 研究区域的 24%-34%），这在气候模型中通常是一致的。与气温上升相关的变量与 R&R 指标的下降最密切相关。新的连续 R&R 指数量化了对气候变化的反应;特别适用于预计的R&R类别没有变化但R&R仍可能减少的地区，例如，一些历史性R&R类别较低的地区。此外，我们发现目前被描述为具有高鼠尾草生态完整性的地区具有最大的面积百分比，预计未来 R&R 会下降，这表明鼠尾草生态系统持续下降。 这些 R&R 预测的一个局限性是，在训练数据中代表性不足的特别炎热和干燥地区，未来气候条件相对较新。在将来的更新中包含来自这些领域的更多数据可以进一步提高预测的可靠性。总体而言，这些预计的未来 R&R 下降凸显了该地区自然资源管理者面临的日益严峻的挑战，而由此产生的空间明确的数据集提供的信息可以改进长期风险评估、优先排序和气候适应工作。