Vegetation resistance and resilience to drought directly affect terrestrial ecosystem stability under climate change. However, the drivers of spatial heterogeneity in drought resistance and resilience remains poorly understood. Using a satellite-derived vegetation index, we calculated and examined the changes in drought resistance and resilience among different biomes worldwide between 2000 and 2015. On the one hand, drought resistance showed a significant increase with the increase in water availability (r =0.83) but observed no significant relationship between drought resistance and energy. On the other hand, drought resilience showed a significant increase with the increase in energy (r =0.77), with no significant correlation between drought resilience and water availability observed. In addition, drought resistance generally showed a negative correlation with drought resilience across different biomes worldwide. However, the negative correlation between resistance and resilience was significantly stronger in regions with lower water availability than in those with higher ones. These findings provide evidence that water and energy co-regulated the spatial heterogeneity in drought resistance and resilience across the globe. The robust linear relationship between drought resistance and resilience and available water and energy demonstrated in our study is critical to accurately predicting and assessing the impact of climate change on vegetation growth and terrestrial carbon cycling in the future.

Climate change, resistance, resilience, drought, spatial heterogeneity, vegetation index