Plant functional traits mediate reproductive phenology and success in response to experimental warming and snow addition in Tibet

Abstract

Global climate change is predicted to have large impacts on the phenology and reproduction of alpine plants, which will have important implications for plant demography and community interactions, trophic dynamics, ecosystem energy balance, and human livelihoods. In this article we report results of a 3-year, fully factorial experimental study exploring how warming, snow addition, and their combination affect reproductive phenology, effort, and success of four alpine plant species belonging to three different life forms in a semiarid, alpine meadow ecosystem on the central Tibetan Plateau. Our results indicate that warming and snow addition change reproductive phenology and success, but responses are not uniform across species. Moreover, traits associated with resource acquisition, such as rooting depth and life history (early vs. late flowering), mediate plant phenology, and reproductive responses to changing climatic conditions. Specifically, we found that warming delayed the reproductive phenology and decreased number of inflorescences of Kobresia pygmaea C. B. Clarke, a shallow-rooted, early-flowering plant, which may be mainly constrained by upper-soil moisture availability. Because K. pygmaea is the dominant species in the alpine meadow ecosystem, these results may have important implications for ecosystem dynamics and for pastoralists and wildlife in the region.

Impact of particulate and dissolved material on light absorption properties in a High-Altitude Lake in Tibet, China

“…a Belzile et al (2004) b Davies-Colley et al (1984) c Tahoe Environmental Research Center (2015) d Rose et al (2009) e Hargreaves et al (2007) f Belzile et al (2002) g Liu et al (2009) h Mitamura et al (2003) above 4,000 m on the Yungui Plateau, China (Zhang et al, 2010) and Lake Puma Yumco, China , the latter being located on the TP. The low Chla concentrations in Lake Namtso water can be related to harsh environmental conditions with a short growing season [normally from mid-May until midSeptember (Dorji et al, 2013)], low temperatures [average annual temperature of À0.16 C (Kang et al, 2011)], and high UV exposure [UV index above 15 on TP (Norsang et al, 2014)]. The high Chl-a concentrations observed at the surface of St. 1 in late July 2013 compared to those observed at St. 2-St. 5 in the same period (see Fig.…”

Local knowledge production, transmission, and the importance of village leaders in a network of Tibetan pastoralists coping with environmental change

“…Interviewees' LEK also contributes to the debate over the direction of phenological trends on the plateau (e.g., Yu et al 2010, Zhang et al 2013, Shen et al 2015, lending http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss1/art25/ support to the growing evidence for increasingly delayed and shortened growing seasons in central Tibet (Dorji et al 2013. However, herders' perceptions of colder winter temperatures and decreasing precipitation disagree with trends reported in the climate science literature (Kang et al 2010, Christensen et al 2013.…”

Plant Species Richness, Evenness, and Composition along Environmental Gradients in an Alpine Meadow Grazing Ecosystem in Central Tibet, China

“…Cincotta et al (1992) argued that plant-herbivore interaction is the driving force of plant population dynamics on the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau, while Dorji et al (2010) indicated that climatic variability is the principle driver of plant community properties on the northwestern part of the Tibetan plateau. While research has been conducted at large scales across the Tibetan Plateau (Shimono et al, 2010) and within experimental plots (Klein et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2009;Dorji et al, 2013b), there has been less work at an intermediate scale on how plant community properties may be controlled by abiotic environmental conditions and grazing intensity. Moreover, most plant ecological studies on the Tibetan Plateau are located on its eastern margin, and there is little information regarding plant community properties in the central Tibet grasslands.…”