Elevated CO<sub>2</sub>increases soil moisture and enhances plant water relations in a long-term field study in semi-arid shortgrass steppe of Colorado

Nelson, Jim A.; Morgan, Jack A.; LeCain, Daniel R.; Mosier, A. R.; Milchunas, Daniel G.; Parton, Bill

doi:10.1023/b:plso.0000020957.83641.62

Cited by 102 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…3D) and soil water content was generally high, especially in the elevated CO 2 treatment (22). Compared with shallow-rooted grasses like the site-dominant B. gracilis, the tap-root of A. frigida may enhance its ability to extract soil water at depths that can increase under elevated CO 2 (10,22,26,27). Greater access to soil water may have been especially important under the conditions of low soil water content that prevailed in the final 2 years of the experiment (22).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…4D). The temporal decline in C 4 cover was likely due to low soil water content in the final 2 years of the experiment (22) and may reflect a commonly observed drought escape strategy of the system C 4 -dominant B. gracilis to shed its leaves during prolonged drought. Increased cover of the subshrub A. frigida over the same period suggests greater competitive ability of this tap-rooted subshrub for deeper soil water, especially under elevated CO 2 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low growing season precipitation in 2000 ( Fig. 3D) and lack of soil water recharge in 2001 resulted in consistently low soil water content in the final 2 years of the experiment (22), which likely was an important factor in the correspondingly low productivity of C 3 grasses in 2000 and 2001 (Fig. 3A).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such conditions may have prevailed in the early years of the experiment, when growing season precipitation was relatively abundant (3-year average of 435 mm for years 1997-1999 compared with a long-term value of 280 mm) (Fig. 3D) and soil water content was generally high, especially in the elevated CO 2 treatment (22). Compared with shallow-rooted grasses like the site-dominant B. gracilis, the tap-root of A. frigida may enhance its ability to extract soil water at depths that can increase under elevated CO 2 (10,22,26,27).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe

Morgan¹,

Milchunas

LeCain³

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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194

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A hypothesis has been advanced that the incursion of woody plants into world grasslands over the past two centuries has been driven in part by increasing carbon dioxide concentration, [CO 2], in Earth's atmosphere. Unlike the warm season forage grasses they are displacing, woody plants have a photosynthetic metabolism and carbon allocation patterns that are responsive to CO2, and many have tap roots that are more effective than grasses for reaching deep soil water stores that can be enhanced under elevated CO2. However, this commonly cited hypothesis has little direct support from manipulative experimentation and competes with more traditional theories of shrub encroachment involving climate change, management, and fire. Here, we show that, although doubling [CO 2] over the Colorado shortgrass steppe had little impact on plant species diversity, it resulted in an increasingly dissimilar plant community over the 5-year experiment compared with plots maintained at present-day [CO 2]. Growth at the doubled [CO 2] resulted in an Ϸ40-fold increase in aboveground biomass and a 20-fold increase in plant cover of Artemisia frigida Willd, a common subshrub of some North American and Asian grasslands. This CO 2-induced enhancement of plant growth, among the highest yet reported, provides evidence from a native grassland suggesting that rising atmospheric [CO 2] may be contributing to the shrubland expansions of the past 200 years. Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands is an important problem facing rangeland managers and ranchers; this process replaces grasses, the preferred forage of domestic livestock, with species that are unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing.have increased from Ϸ280 volumetric ppm in preindustrial times to Ϸ380 ppm today and are projected to exceed 600 ppm by the end of this century, it is perhaps more important to point out that CO 2 levels are higher today than they have been for at least 650,000 years (1). Furthermore, levels of atmospheric CO 2 for the past half million years have tended to stay closer to the lowest glacial levels of Ϸ180 ppm compared with the Ϸ280-300 ppm of interglacial periods. These recent abrupt changes in atmospheric CO 2 have tremendous implications for the adaptation and evolution of relatively modern ecosystems, such as C 4 grasslands, that have evolved under relatively low atmospheric [CO 2 ] by today's standards. This report focuses on the responses of vegetation in a Colorado semiarid grassland to growth at variable [CO 2 ], but our report has implications for other rangelands around the world.Rangelands comprise Ͼ40% of Earth's terrestrial surface (2). Although these lands are characteristically water-limited and unsuitable for intensive agriculture, they support one of the world's most extensive agricultural practices, domestic livestock grazing (3-5). Rangelands are important not only for the plant and animal products they provide but also as regions in which distinct pastoral cultures and societies have developed. Rising atmospheric [CO 2 ] and predicted glob...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe

Morgan¹,

Milchunas

LeCain³

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

194

164

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“…Right panel shows the climate factors responsible for the mega-biome changes according to a sensitivity study forces. The expansion of deciduous taiga and the replacement of desert by temperate steppe and shrubland during the last deglaciation are likely caused by increased moisture availability to plants, either because of increased precipitation or an increase in CO 2 which raises the water-use efficiency of plants Nelson et al 2004).…”

Section: Potential Driving Forces Of Vegetation Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biome changes and their inferred climatic drivers in northern and eastern continental Asia at selected times since 40 cal ka bp

Tian

Cao²,

Dallmeyer

et al. 2017

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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Recent global warming is pronounced in high-latitude regions (e.g. northern Asia), and will cause the vegetation to change. Future vegetation trends (e.g. the "arctic greening") will feed back into atmospheric circulation and the global climate system. Understanding the nature and causes of past vegetation changes is important for predicting the composition and distribution of future vegetation communities. Fossil pollen records from 468 sites in northern and eastern Asia were biomised at selected times between 40 cal ka bp and today. Biomes were also simulated using a climate-driven biome model and results from the two approaches compared in order to help understand the mechanisms behind the observed vegetation changes. The consistent biome results inferred by both approaches reveal that long-term and broad-scale vegetation patterns reflect globalto hemispheric-scale climate changes. Forest biomes increase around the beginning of the late deglaciation, become more widespread during the early and middle Holocene, and decrease in the late Holocene in fringe areas of the Asian Summer Monsoon. At the southern and southwestern margins of the taiga, forest increases in the early Holocene and shows notable species succession, which may have been caused by winter warming at ca. 7 cal ka bp. At the northeastern taiga margin (central Yakutia and northeastern Siberia), shrub expansion during the last deglaciation appears to prevent the permafrost from thawing and hinders the northward expansion of evergreen needle-leaved species until ca. 7 cal ka bp. The vegetationclimate disequilibrium during the early Holocene in the taiga-tundra transition zone suggests that projected climate warming will not cause a northward expansion of evergreen needle-leaved species.

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Quantify the loss of major ions induced by CO₂enrichment and nitrogen addition in subtropical model forest ecosystems

Liu

Zhang

Huang

et al. 2014

J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci.

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Previous studies have reported that atmospheric CO 2 enrichment would increase the ion concentrations in the soil water. However, none of these studies could exactly quantify the amount of ion changes in the soil water induced by elevated CO 2 and all of these experiments were carried out only in the temperate areas. Using an open-top chamber design, we studied the effects of CO 2 enrichment alone and together with nitrogen (N) addition on soil water chemistry in the subtropics. Three years of exposure to an atmospheric CO 2 concentration of 700 ppm resulted in accelerated base cation loss via leaching water below the 70 cm soil profile. The total of base cation (K + + Na + + Ca 2+ + Mg 2+) loss in the elevated CO 2 treatment was higher than that of the control by 220%, 115%, and 106% in 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively Mn 2+ loss in the high N treatment increased by 100% and 67%, respectively. However, the CO 2 treatment decreased the effect of high N treatment on the metal cation loss. Changes of ion export followed by the exposure to the elevated CO 2 , and N treatments were related to both ion concentrations and leached water amount. We hypothesize that forests in subtropical China might suffer from nutrient limitation and some poisonous metal activation in plant biomass under future global change.

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Elevated CO₂increases soil moisture and enhances plant water relations in a long-term field study in semi-arid shortgrass steppe of Colorado

Cited by 102 publications

References 37 publications

Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe

Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe

Biome changes and their inferred climatic drivers in northern and eastern continental Asia at selected times since 40 cal ka bp

Quantify the loss of major ions induced by CO₂enrichment and nitrogen addition in subtropical model forest ecosystems

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Elevated CO2increases soil moisture and enhances plant water relations in a long-term field study in semi-arid shortgrass steppe of Colorado

Cited by 102 publications

References 37 publications

Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe

Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe

Biome changes and their inferred climatic drivers in northern and eastern continental Asia at selected times since 40 cal ka bp

Quantify the loss of major ions induced by CO2enrichment and nitrogen addition in subtropical model forest ecosystems

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Elevated CO₂increases soil moisture and enhances plant water relations in a long-term field study in semi-arid shortgrass steppe of Colorado

Quantify the loss of major ions induced by CO₂enrichment and nitrogen addition in subtropical model forest ecosystems