Successional change in species composition alters climate sensitivity of grassland productivity |
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| Authors: | Zheng Shi Yang Lin Kevin R Wilcox Lara Souza Lifen Jiang Jiang Jiang Chang Gyo Jung Xia Xu Mengting Yuan Xue Guo Liyou Wu Jizhong Zhou Yiqi Luo |
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| Institution: | 1. Co‐Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China;2. Department of Microbiology & Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma;3. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California;4. Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona;5. Key Laboratory of Soil and Water Conservation and Ecological Restoration in Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Forestry in Southern China of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China;6. Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma;7. School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China;8. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China;9. Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California |
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| Abstract: | Succession theory predicts altered sensitivity of ecosystem functions to disturbance (i.e., climate change) due to the temporal shift in plant community composition. However, empirical evidence in global change experiments is lacking to support this prediction. Here, we present findings from an 8‐year long‐term global change experiment with warming and altered precipitation manipulation (double and halved amount). First, we observed a temporal shift in species composition over 8 years, resulting in a transition from an annual C3‐dominant plant community to a perennial C4‐dominant plant community. This successional transition was independent of any experimental treatments. During the successional transition, the response of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) to precipitation addition magnified from neutral to +45.3%, while the response to halved precipitation attenuated substantially from ?17.6% to neutral. However, warming did not affect ANPP in either state. The findings further reveal that the time‐dependent climate sensitivity may be regulated by successional change in species composition, highlighting the importance of vegetation dynamics in regulating the response of ecosystem productivity to precipitation change. |
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| Keywords: | anthropogenic perturbation biotic competition long‐term experiment manipulative experiment succession |
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