Assessment of the Productivity Parameters of Plant Communities in the Steppe Zone of Western Siberia Obtained Using Remote Sensing and Dendrochronological Methods

Abstract

This study is concerned with a conjugate analysis of the productivity of herbaceous and woody plants from various landscape communities, such as the typical steppe, salinized, woody, and agricultural, in arid conditions of southwestern Siberia performed using different methods; specifically, remote sensing (analysis of the vegetation indices NDVI) and dendrochronological (analysis of the stem growth increment in width in Scotch pine (Punus sylvestris L.) from extrazonal ribbon coniferous forests (bors)). Climate factors were established that govern the dynamics of NDVI and the radial growth increment in trees of the steppe zone, which include the limiting impact of summer temperature and the positive effect of atmospheric precipitation of the previous winter and current summer seasons. Analysis of the vegetation indices and the radial growth increment in trees showed the occurrence of a moderate relationship between them, in that NDVI of May and July of the herbaceous communities (Stipa spp.-Volga fescue and arable lands) correlate with a width of annual rings in trees. The width of the pine radial growth increment in the arid steppe was found to depend on the NDVI value of the crown of tree stands in May from two years before.