Degrees of compositional shift in tree communities vary along a gradient of temperature change rates over one decade: Application of an individual‐based temporal beta‐diversity concept

Temporal patterns in communities have gained widespread attention recently, to the extent that temporal changes in community composition are now termed “temporal beta‐diversity.” Previous studies of beta‐diversity have made use of two classes of dissimilarity indices: incidence‐based (e.g., Sørensen and Jaccard dissimilarity) and abundance‐based (e.g., Bray–Curtis and Ružička dissimilarity). However, in the context of temporal beta‐diversity, the persistence of identical individuals and turnover among other individuals within the same species over time have not been considered, despite the fact that both will affect compositional changes in communities. To address this issue, I propose new index concepts for beta‐diversity and the relative speed of compositional shifts in relation to individual turnover based on individual identity information. Individual‐based beta‐diversity indices are novel dissimilarity indices that consider individual identity information to quantitatively evaluate temporal change in individual turnover and community composition. I applied these new indices to individually tracked tree monitoring data in deciduous and evergreen broad‐leaved forests across the Japanese archipelago with the objective of quantifying the effect of climate change trends (i.e., rates of change in both annual mean temperature and annual precipitation) on individual turnover and compositional shifts at each site. A new index explored the relative contributions of mortality and recruitment processes to temporal changes in community composition. Clear patterns emerged showing that an increase in the temperature change rate facilitated the relative contribution of mortality components. The relative speed of compositional shift increased with increasing temperature change rates in deciduous forests but decreased with increasing warming rates in evergreen forests. These new concepts provide a way to identify novel and high‐resolution temporal patterns in communities.     

不同降水条件下生物结皮覆盖对沙地土壤有机碳的影响

生物结皮是干旱半干旱地区重要的地表活体覆盖物,其通过光合固碳影响土壤有机碳、活性碳组分的含量及其稳定性。目前有关生物结皮中有机碳变化特征的研究非常有限。本研究在毛乌素沙地沿降水梯度从西北向东南选择了两类典型的生物结皮(苔藓结皮、藻结皮),直线跨度188 km,通过测定土壤有机碳(SOC)、微生物生物量碳(MBC)、可溶性有机碳(DOC)、颗粒态有机碳(POC)和易氧化有机碳(ROC),探讨生物结皮对土壤有机碳稳定性的作用及其对降水梯度的响应,并基于藓类植物凋落物分解试验解析降水变化对其碳分解过程的影响。结果表明: 1)两类生物结皮覆盖均显著提高了SOC和MBC、DOC、POC、ROC等活性碳组分含量及SOC稳定性,其中,藓结皮对SOC的提升作用为藻结皮的1.6～2.6倍。2)两类生物结皮SOC含量最低点均出现在西北样地(分别为6.43、14.50 g·kg^-1),随降水升高,SOC总体上呈现递增的趋势。3)随降水的升高,藓类凋落物所需的分解时间逐渐减少,研究期内(7月至次年2月)的分解系数在0.010～0.014,显著低于维管植物,自西北向东南3个样地藓类凋落物的碳释放量分别为8.09、10.89、12.88 g·kg^-1。4)典范对应分析显示,水蒸气分压力、实际蒸散量、年均温、地表向下短波辐射、潜在蒸散量、饱和水汽压差等是影响SOC及其活性碳组分含量的关键气候因子,粉粒含量是影响其含量的主要土壤因子。     

Effects of soil resource availability on patterns of plant functional traits across spatial scales

Identifying patterns and drivers of plant community assembly has long been a central issue in ecology. Many studies have explored the above questions using a trait‐based approach; however, there are still unknowns around how patterns of plant functional traits vary with environmental gradients. In this study, the responses of individual and multivariate trait dispersions of 134 species to soil resource availability were examined based on correlational analysis and torus‐translation tests across four spatial scales in a subtropical forest, China. Results indicated that different degrees of soil resource availability had different effects on trait dispersions. Specifically, limited resource (available phosphorus) showed negative relationships with trait dispersions, non‐limited resource (available potassium) showed positive relationships with trait dispersions, and saturated resource (available nitrogen) had no effect on trait dispersions. Moreover, compared with the stem (wood density) and architectural trait (maximum height), we found that leaf functional traits can well reflect the response of plants to nutrient gradients. Lastly, the spatial scale only affected the magnitude but not the direction of the correlations between trait dispersions and environmental gradients. Overall, the results highlight the importance of soil resource availability and spatial scale in understanding how plant functional traits respond to environmental gradients.     

Lagged effects of experimental warming and doubled precipitation on annual and seasonal aboveground biomass production in a tallgrass prairie

Global climate change is expected to result in a greater frequency of extreme weather, which can cause lag effects on aboveground net primary production (ANPP). However, our understanding of lag effects is limited. To explore lag effects following extreme weather, we applied four treatments (control, doubled precipitation, 4 °C warming, and warming plus doubled precipitation) for 1 year in a randomized block design and monitored changes in ecosystem processes for 3 years in an old‐field tallgrass prairie in central Oklahoma. Biomass was estimated twice in the pretreatment year, and three times during the treatment and posttreatment years. Total plant biomass was increased by warming in spring of the treatment year and by doubled precipitation in summer. However, double precipitation suppressed fall production. During the following spring, biomass production was significantly suppressed in the formerly warmed plots 2 months after treatments ceased. Nine months after the end of treatments, fall production remained suppressed in double precipitation and warming plus double precipitation treatments. Also, the formerly warmed plots still had a significantly greater proportion of C₄ plants, while the warmed plus double precipitation plots retained a high proportion of C₃ plants. The lag effects of warming on biomass did not match the temporal patterns of soil nitrogen availability determined by plant root simulator probes, but coincided with warming‐induced decreases in available soil moisture in the deepest layers of soil which recovered to the pretreatment pattern approximately 10 months after the treatments ceased. Analyzing the data with an ecosystem model showed that the lagged temporal patterns of effects of warming and precipitation on biomass can be fully explained by warming‐induced differences in soil moisture. Thus, both the experimental results and modeling analysis indicate that water availability regulates lag effects of warming on biomass production.     

模拟增温对武夷山不同海拔森林表层土壤碳氮及酶活性的影响

为了解亚热带森林土壤碳氮及酶活性对气候变暖的响应,以武夷山不同海拔的三种典型森林群落土壤为研究对象,采用把高海拔土柱置换到低海拔的方式模拟增温,探究模拟增温对土壤碳、氮、磷循环相关酶活性及土壤理化性质的影响。结果表明:土柱置换后海拔梯度上土壤温度平均增加2℃。土柱置换模拟增温导致高海拔(1400 m)土壤有机碳下降幅度最大;不同海拔土壤铵态氮、硝态氮、微生物生物量碳均呈下降趋势,仅高海拔达到显著水平。土柱置换对各海拔土壤水解酶活性影响较大,而对氧化酶活性没有显著影响。相反,土柱置换增温增加了各海拔土壤归一化酶活性,且高海拔土壤归一化酶活性对增温的响应程度比低海拔更大。冗余分析结果发现,土壤有机碳、可溶性有机碳、土壤温度和含水率是影响土壤酶活性变化最重要的因子。本研究表明模拟增温对高海拔土壤碳氮循环过程影响较大,其机制主要是通过提高微生物活性和分泌酶的能力来影响土壤碳氮循环过程。     

Geographical and experimental contexts modulate the effect of warming on top‐down control: a meta‐analysis

Ecologists have extensively investigated the effect of warming on consumer–resource interactions, with experiments revealing that warming can strengthen, weaken or have no net effect on top‐down control of resources. These experiments have inspired a body of theoretical work to explain the variation in the effect of warming on top‐down control. However, there has been no quantitative attempt to reconcile theory with outcomes from empirical studies. To address the gap between theory and experiment, we performed a meta‐analysis to examine the combined effect of experimental warming and top‐down control on resource biomass and determined potential sources of variation across experiments. We show that differences in experimental outcomes are related to systematic variation in the geographical distribution of studies. Specifically, warming strengthened top‐down control when experiments were conducted in colder regions, but had the opposite effect in warmer regions. Furthermore, we found that differences in the thermoregulation strategy of the consumer and openness of experimental arenas to dispersal can contribute to some deviation from the overall geographical pattern. These results reconcile empirical findings and support the expectation of geographical variation in the response of consumer–resource interactions to warming.     

Low interannual precipitation has a greater negative effect than seedling herbivory on the population dynamics of a short‐lived shrub,Schiedea obovata

Climate projections forecast more extreme interannual climate variability over time, with an increase in the severity and duration of extreme drought and rainfall events. Based on bioclimatic envelope models, it is projected that changing precipitation patterns will drastically alter the spatial distributions and density of plants and be a primary driver of biodiversity loss. However, many other underlying mechanisms can impact plant vital rates (i.e., survival, growth, and reproduction) and population dynamics. In this study, we developed a size‐dependent integral projection model (IPM) to evaluate how interannual precipitation and mollusk herbivory influence the dynamics of a Hawaii endemic short‐lived shrub, Schiedea obovata (Caryophyllaceae). Assessing how wet season precipitation effects population dynamics it critical, as it is the timeframe when most of the foliar growth occurs, plants flower and fruit, and seedlings establish. Temporal variation in wet season precipitation had a greater effect than mollusk herbivory on S. obovata population growth rate , and the impact of interannual precipitation on vital rates shifted across plant ontogeny. Furthermore, wet season precipitation influenced multiple vital rates in contrasting ways and the effect of precipitation on the survival of larger vegetative and reproductively mature individuals contributed the most to variation in the population growth rate. Among all combination of wet season precipitation and herbivory intensities, the only scenario that led to a growing population was when high wet precipitation was associated with low herbivory. Our study highlights the importance of evaluating how abiotic factors and plant–consumer interactions influence an organism across its life cycle to fully understand the underpinning mechanisms that structure its spatial and temporal distribution and abundance. Our results also illustrate that for short‐lived species, like S. obovata, seedling herbivory can have less of an effect on the dynamics of plant populations than decreased interannual precipitation.     

Carbon isotopes of C3 herbs correlate with temperature on removing the influence of precipitation across a temperature transect in the agro‐pastoral ecotone of northern China

Plant δ¹³C–temperature (δ‐T) relation has been established in many systems and is often used as paleotemperature transfer function. However, it is still unclear about the exact contributions of temperature variation to plant ¹³C discrimination because of covariation between temperature and precipitation (aridity), which reduces confidence in reconstruction of paleoclimate. In this study, we measured carbon isotope composition (δ¹³C) of 173 samples of C3 perennial herbs from 22 sites across a temperature gradient along the 400 mm isohyet in the farming‐pastoral zone of North China. The results showed that precipitation obviously affected the correlations of temperatures and foliar δ¹³C. After removing the influence of precipitation by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), a more strongly positive relationship was obtained between site‐mean foliar δ¹³C and annual mean temperature (AMT), with a regression coefficient of 0.1636‰/°C (p = .0024). For widespread species, Artemisia lavandulaefolia and Artemisia capillaries, the slopes (or coefficients) of foliar δ¹³C and AMT were significantly steeper (larger) than those of foliar δ¹³C and AMT where the precipitation influence was not excluded, whereas the δ‐T coefficients of Polygonum persicaria and Leymus chinensis showed little change across the transect after deducting the precipitation effect. Moreover, the positive relationship between temperature and δ¹³C over the transect could be explained by soil moisture availability related to temperature. Our results may afford new opportunities for investigating the nature of past climate variability.