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Subtropical mangroves have great potential to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and thus significantly contribute to climate change mitigation. Meanwhile, the carbon cycling processes in subtropical mangroves are vulnerable to the changing climatic conditions, such as the warming-induced vapor pressure deficit (VPD) increases. However, the impacts of VPD on net ecosystem production (NEP) in subtropical mangroves remain poorly understood due to a lack of detailed assessment of NEP responses to VPD among different mangrove forests over a long-term observational period. In this study, we deployed eddy-covariance systems to measure net ecosystem CO₂ exchange at three subtropical mangrove forests for 16 site-years, comprising two natural and one artificial forests. We employed a state-of-the-art data-driven modeling approach (i.e., Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) framework based …