Compensatory dynamics drive grassland recovery from drought

Luo, Wentao; Ma, Wang; Song, Lin; Te, Niwu; Chen, Jiaqi; Muraina, Taofeek O.; Wilkins, Kathryn; Griffin‐Nolan, Robert J.; Ma, Tianxiao; Qian, Jianqiang; Xu, Chi; Yu, Qiang; Wang, Zhengwen; Han, Xingguo; Collins, Scott L.

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.14096

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…of these two species, the greater heat tolerance conveyed by the C 4 photosynthetic pathway, and the low resilience of C 3 bunchgrasses to experimental warming and drying and modeled future conditions suggests a likely greater future dominance of P. jamseii and Sporobolus spp. relative to the C 3 bunchgrasses (Havrilla et al, 2022; Luo et al, 2023).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem resilience to invasion and drought: Insights after 24 years in a rare never‐grazed grassland

Duniway,

Finger‐Higgens,

Geiger

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Understanding the resilience of ecosystems globally is hampered by the complex and interacting drivers of change characteristic of the Anthropocene. This is true for drylands of the western US, where widespread alteration of disturbance regimes and spread of invasive non‐native species occurred with westward expansion during the 1800s, including the introduction of domestic livestock and spread of Bromus tectorum, an invasive non‐native annual grass. In addition, this region has experienced a multi‐decadal drought not seen for at least 1200 years with potentially large and interacting impacts on native plant communities. Here, we present 24 years of twice‐annual plant cover monitoring (1997–2021) from a semiarid grassland never grazed by domestic livestock but subject to a patchy invasion of B. tectorum beginning in ~1994, compare our findings to surveys done in 1967, and examine potential climate drivers of plant community changes. We found a significant warming trend in the study area, with more than 75% of study year temperatures being warmer than average (1966–2021). We observed a native perennial grass community with high resilience to climate forcings with cover values like those in 1967. In invaded patches, B. tectorum cover was greatest in the early years of this study (1997–2001; ~20%–40%) but was subsequently constrained by climate and subtle variation in soils, with limited evidence of long‐term impacts to native vegetation, contradicting earlier studies. Our ability to predict year‐to‐year variation in functional group and species cover with climate metrics varied, with a 12‐month integrated index and fall and winter patterns appearing most important. However, declines to near zero live cover in recent years in response to regional drought intensification leave questions regarding the resiliency of intact grasslands to ongoing aridification and whether the vegetation observations reported here may be a leading indicator of impending change in this protected ecosystem.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem resilience to invasion and drought: Insights after 24 years in a rare never‐grazed grassland

Duniway,

Finger‐Higgens,

Geiger

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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“…As noted above, ecosystem responses and sensitivity to drought can vary dramatically, and although fewer experiments have focussed on the recovery of ecosystem functioning post‐drought (Luo, Ma, et al., 2023), both large‐scale observations (Jiao et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023; Petrie et al., 2018; Schwalm et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2018) and past experiments suggest that there is quite significant variability in the recovery of ecosystems post‐drought (e.g. Stuart‐Haëntjens et al., 2018).…”

Section: Looking Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stuart‐Haëntjens et al., 2018). Some evidence suggests that drought resistance and recovery may be tightly coupled (Ingrisch et al., 2023), but experiments have also shown that rapid recovery can occur despite low drought resistance, with many mechanisms proposed (Correa‐Díaz et al., 2023; Griffin‐Nolan, Carroll, et al., 2018; Hoover et al., 2014; Luo, Ma, et al., 2023; Luo, Muraina, Griffin‐Nolan, Ma, et al., 2023; Stuart‐Haëntjens et al., 2018). Of greater concern is that some ecosystems may recover very slowly (if at all) to pre‐drought states when drought is extreme (Müller & Bahn, 2022; Smith, 2011a; Vilonen et al., 2022), Importantly, insufficient recovery post‐drought may exacerbate or ameliorate impacts of subsequent droughts.…”

Section: Looking Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alternatively, productivity may be stimulated post‐drought (Griffin‐Nolan et al. 2018b; Hermance et al., 2015; Luo, Ma, et al., 2023), a response often attributed to increased soil N availability (de Vries et al., 2016; Hofer et al., 2017; Liu, Siri, et al., 2023; Ru et al., 2023; Shen et al., 2016) or shifts in plant community structure (Luo, Ma, et al., 2023). Overall, drought legacies have been observed to influence post‐drought recovery in a variety of ecosystems ranging from grasslands to forests (Anderegg et al., 2015; Han et al., 2021; Kannenberg et al., 2020; Oesterheld et al., 2001; Sala et al., 2012).…”

Section: Looking Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Field experiments have enhanced our understanding of drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems—But where do we go from here?

Knapp,

Condon,

Folks

et al. 2023

Functional Ecology

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We review results from field experiments that simulate drought, an ecologically impactful global change threat that is predicted to increase in magnitude, extent, duration and frequency. Our goal is to address, from primarily an ecosystem perspective, the questions ‘What have we learned from drought experiments?’ and ‘Where do we go from here?’. Drought experiments are among the most numerous climate change manipulations and have been deployed across a wide range of biomes, although most are conducted in short‐statured, water‐limited ecosystems. Collectively, these experiments have enabled ecologists to quantify the negative responses to drought that occur for most aspects of ecosystem structure and function. Multiple meta‐analyses of responses have also enabled comparisons of relative effect sizes of drought across hundreds of sites, particularly for carbon cycle metrics. Overall, drought experiments have provided strong evidence that ecosystem sensitivity to drought increases with aridity, but that plant traits associated with aridity are not necessarily predictive of drought resistance. There is also intriguing evidence that as drought magnitude or duration increases to extreme levels, plant strategies may shift from drought tolerance to drought escape/avoidance. We highlight three areas where more drought experiments are needed to advance our understanding. First, because drought is intensifying in multiple ways, experiments are needed that address alterations in drought magnitude versus duration, timing and/or frequency (individually and interactively). Second, drivers of drought may be shifting—from precipitation deficits to rising atmospheric demand for water—and disentangling how ecosystems respond to changes in hydrological ‘supply versus demand’ is critical for understanding drought impacts in the future. Finally, more attention should be focussed on post‐drought recovery periods since legacies of drought can affect ecosystem functioning much longer than the drought itself. We conclude with a call for a fundamental shift in the focus of drought experiments from those designed primarily as ‘response experiments’, quantifying the magnitude of change in ecosystem structure and function, to more ‘mechanistic experiments’—those that explicitly manipulate ecological processes or attributes thought to underpin drought responses. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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“…Plants can alternatively tolerate drought‐induced lower tissue water content by reducing their tiller abundance and carbon allocation for growth and undergoing temporary above‐ground senescence (Dalgleish & Hartnett, 2006; Meng et al, 2022; Qian et al, 2023; Reichmann et al, 2013). Given that bud banks can withstand the extremes of drought better than above‐ground portions of plants (VanderWeide & Hartnett, 2015), the ability of below‐ground buds during drought determines the post‐drought recovery of perennial (Loydi & Collins, 2021; Luo, Ma, et al, 2023; Vesk & Westoby, 2004). Thus, when adequate soil moisture returns, perennial plants reduce below‐ground bud production and increase above‐ground tillers to maximize above‐ground productivity (Dalgleish & Hartnett, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High below‐ground bud abundance increases ecosystem recovery from drought across arid and semiarid grasslands

Luo

Muraina²,

Griffin‐Nolan

et al. 2023

Journal of Ecology

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Asexual reproduction plays a fundamental role in the structure, dynamics and persistence of perennial grasslands. Thus, assessing how asexual reproductive traits of plant communities respond to drought may be key for understanding grassland resistance to drought and recovery following drought. Here, we quantified three asexual reproductive traits (i.e. above‐ground tiller abundance, below‐ground bud abundance and the ratio of tillers to buds) during a 4‐year severe drought and a 2‐year drought recovery period in four grasslands that spanned an aridity gradient in northern China. We also assessed the relationship between these traits and the resistance and recovery of above‐ground net primary productivity (ANPP). We found that drought had limited and largely inconsistent effects on asexual reproduction among drought and recovery years and grasslands overall. Drought increased tiller abundance in the first treatment year and reduced bud banks by the fourth treatment year across grasslands. However, neither of the three asexual reproductive traits were correlated with drought resistance of ANPP. Drought legacies differed among the four grasslands with positive, negative and no legacies evident for the three asexual reproductive traits, and no clear relationship with aridity. Bud banks and tiller to bud ratio decreased and increased, respectively, in the first recovery year, but not in the second recovery year. In contrast to drought resistance, community bud abundance was strongly related to recovery, such that communities with higher bud abundance had greater ANPP recovery following drought. Synthesis. These results suggest that asexual reproductive traits may be important drivers of ecosystem recovery after drought, but that variable responses of these asexual reproduction traits during drought complicates predictions of overall grassland responses.

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Compensatory dynamics drive grassland recovery from drought

Cited by 17 publications

References 64 publications

Ecosystem resilience to invasion and drought: Insights after 24 years in a rare never‐grazed grassland

Ecosystem resilience to invasion and drought: Insights after 24 years in a rare never‐grazed grassland

Field experiments have enhanced our understanding of drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems—But where do we go from here?

High below‐ground bud abundance increases ecosystem recovery from drought across arid and semiarid grasslands

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