Revealing the dominant factors of vegetation change in global ecosystems

In the context of climate change, revealing the causes of significant changes in ecosystems will help maintain ecosystem stability and achieve sustainability. However, the dominant influencing factors of different ecosystems in different months on a global scale are not clear. We used Ordinary Least Squares Model and Mann–Kendall test to detect the significant changes (p < 0.05) of ecosystem on a monthly scale from 1981 to 2015. And then multi-source data, residual analysis and partial correlation method was used to distinguish the impact of anthropogenic activities and dominant climate factors. The result showed that: (1) Not all significant green areas in all months were greater than the browning areas. Woodland had a larger greening area than farmland and grassland, except for January, May, and June, and a larger browning area except for September, November, and December. (2) Anthropogenic activities are the leading factors causing significant greening in ecosystems. However, their impact on significant ecosystem browning was not greater than that of climate change on significant ecosystem greening in all months. (3) The main cause of the ecosystem’s significant greening was temperature. Along with temperature, sunshine duration played a major role in the significant greening of the woodland. The main causes of significant farmland greening were precipitation and soil moisture. Temperature was the main factor that dominated the longest month of significant browning of grassland and woodland. Temperature and soil moisture were the main factors that dominated the longest month of significant browning of farmland. Our research reveals ecosystem changes and their dominant factors on a global scale, thereby supporting the sustainable ecosystem management.