Soil moisture determines the effects of climate warming on spring phenology in grasslands

Liu, Zunchi; Fu, Yulan; Shi, Xusheng; Lock, T. Ryan; Kallenbach, Robert L.; Yuan, Zhiyou

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109039

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Our study also detected a significant increase in ParR and in the sensitivity of LSD to temperatures with the soil moisture gradient (Figure 3a,c). This is consistent with previous studies that demonstrate that vegetation growth is more dominated by temperature in water‐surplus regions than in water‐deficit regions (Jiao et al, 2021; Liu, Fu, et al, 2022), which can also be explained by the fact that vegetation may develop greater temperature sensitivity to maximize thermal benefits in regions where vegetation is less constrained by water (Quetin & Swann, 2017; Shen et al, 2015). Our proposed CDD SM model considers the nonlinear effect of soil moisture on autumn LSD using a nonlinear function to adjust the requirement of cooling degrees, which has been shown to be better for predicting LSD than current modelling approaches.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Earlier leaf senescence dates are constrained by soil moisture

Wang

Liu

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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The unprecedented warming that has occurred in recent decades has led to later autumn leaf senescence dates (LSD) throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Yet, great uncertainties still exist regarding the strength of these delaying trends, especially in terms of how soil moisture affects them. Here we show that changes in soil moisture in 1982-2015 had a substantial impact on autumn LSD in one-fifth of the vegetated areas in the Northern Hemisphere (>30° N), and how it contributed more to LSD variability than either temperature, precipitation or radiation. We developed a new model based on soil-moisture-constrained cooling degree days (CDD SM ) to characterize the effects of soil moisture on LSD and compared its performance with the CDD, Delpierre and spring-influenced autumn models. We show that the CDD SM model with inputs of temperature and soil moisture outperformed the three other models for LSD modelling and had an overall higher correlation coefficient (R), a lower root mean square error and lower Akaike information criterion (AIC) between observations and model predictions. These improvements were particularly evident in arid and semi-arid regions. We studied future LSD using the CDD SM model under two scenarios (SSP126 and SSP585) and found that predicted LSD was 4.1 ± 1.4 days and 5.8 ± 2.8 days earlier under SSP126 and SSP585, respectively, than other models for the end of this century. Our study therefore reveals the importance of soil moisture in regulating autumn LSD and, in particular, highlights how coupling this effect with LSD models can improve simulations of the response of vegetation phenology to future climate change.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Earlier leaf senescence dates are constrained by soil moisture

Wang

Liu

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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“…This implies that the thermal autumn phenology in the two regions may be much more sensitive to maximum temperature changes than to low‐temperature changes (Chen et al, 2020). The region‐dependent responses of autumn phenology to temperature are likely associated with the prephenology water supply (Liu et al, 2022; Shen et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multimodel simulations revealed strong spatial heterogeneity in temperature‐, photoperiod‐ and moisture‐driven modes of autumn phenology in Northern Hemisphere grasslands (25° N–55° N)

Li,

Ren

2023

Land Degrad Dev

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Autumn phenology plays a critical role in regulating growing season length and matter and energy exchanges in terrestrial ecosystems. The climate‐driven mechanism of the grassland autumn phenology process and its spatial distribution patterns at the hemispheric scale are, however, still poorly understood. In this study, we employed 17 existing and modified models to simulate the satellite‐derived end‐of‐season (EOS) over northern mid‐latitude grasslands (25° N–55° N), aiming to determine how grassland autumn phenology responds to individual and combined changes in low temperature, photoperiod, and water supply. The results showed that the prediction accuracy of EOS based on models driven by daily minimum temperature is slightly superior to that of the counterparts forced by daily average temperature. The model modified with water content as a regulatory factor of leaf senescence rate determined by low temperature and photoperiod performed best (root‐mean‐square error, 10.4 days; correlation coefficient, 0.38) on average. The autumn phenology process in 68.4% of grassland areas was better simulated by the models that incorporated water conditions. Spatially, optimal models jointly forced by low temperature, photoperiod, and water supply occupied 61.4% of the North American grasslands, 58.5% of the Central‐West Asian grasslands, and 42.1% of the Mongolian grasslands. Grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau were primarily forced by the associated effects of low temperature and photoperiod. Further analysis revealed that low temperature‐photoperiod driven models and low temperature‐photoperiod‐moisture driven models were mostly distributed in relatively hotter and wetter grasslands, while optimal models forced solely by low temperature were largely concentrated in those grassland areas with cooler and drier autumn. Overall, this study highlights the complex patterns and spatial heterogeneity of environmental control on autumn phenology in the Northern Hemisphere grasslands, which could shed light on global grassland development investigation.

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“…Our finding demonstrated that the observed warming had a significant positive impact on biomass (plant, leaf, stem, and root), corroborating the findings of previous meta‐analyses (Sun et al., 2022; Yue et al., 2017; Zhou, Terrer, et al., 2022a; Zhou, Zhou, et al., 2022b). Changes in soil nitrogen availability and plant phenology in response to warming may be the key drivers of increased biomass in terrestrial ecosystems (Liu, Fu, et al., 2022b; Liu, Jiang, et al., 2022a; Lu et al., 2013). The significant increase in soil nitrogen supply resulted in a greater nitrogen uptake by plants, increasing plant photosynthesis activity and ultimately stimulating plant growth (Bai et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The MB C:N ratios significantly increased in response to warming (Gong et al., 2019), which is consistent with the findings of our own studies. The warming effect may enhanced the growth of the three soil nitrogen transformation bacteria by increasing both the quality and quantity of root exudates in the warmed plots (Liu, Fu, et al., 2022b; Liu, Jiang, et al., 2022a; Zhang et al., 2016). The findings of our study emphasize the immediate necessity to incorporating the responses of biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry to a warming gradient for future ecological predictions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global warming changes biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry of different components in terrestrial ecosystems

Wan,

Liu,

Cheng

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Global warming has significantly affected terrestrial ecosystems. Biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry of plants and soil is crucial for enhancing plant productivity, improving human nutrition, and regulating biogeochemical cycles. However, the effect of warming on the biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry of different components (plant, leaf, stem, root, litter, soil, and microbial biomass) in various terrestrial ecosystems remains uncertain. We conducted a comprehensive meta‐analysis to investigate the global patterns of biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry responses to warming, as well as interaction relationships based on 1399 paired observations from 105 warming studies. Results indicated that warming had a significant impact on various aspects of plant growth, including an increase in plant biomass (+16.55%), plant C:N ratio (+4.15%), leaf biomass (+16.78%), stem biomass (+23.65%), root biomass (+22.00%), litter C:N ratio (+9.54%) and soil C:N ratio (+5.64%). However, it also decreased stem C:P ratio (−23.34%), root C:P ratio (−12.88%), soil N:P ratio (−14.43%) and soil C:P ratio (−16.33%). The magnitude of warming was the primary drivers of changes of biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry. By establishing the general response curves of changes in biomass and C:N:P ratios with increasing temperature, we demonstrated that warming effect on plant, root, and litter biomass shifted from negative to positive, whereas that on leaf and stem biomass changed from positive to negative as temperature increased. Additionally, the effect of warming on root C:N ratio, root biomass, and microbial biomass N:P ratios shifted from positive to negative, whereas the effects on plant N:P, leaf N:P, leaf C:P, root N:P ratios, and microbial biomass C:N ratio changed from negative to positive with increasing temperature. Our research can help assess plant productivity and optimize ecosystem stoichiometry precisely in the context of global warming.

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Soil moisture determines the effects of climate warming on spring phenology in grasslands

Cited by 22 publications

References 64 publications

Earlier leaf senescence dates are constrained by soil moisture

Earlier leaf senescence dates are constrained by soil moisture

Multimodel simulations revealed strong spatial heterogeneity in temperature‐, photoperiod‐ and moisture‐driven modes of autumn phenology in Northern Hemisphere grasslands (25° N–55° N)

Global warming changes biomass and C:N:P stoichiometry of different components in terrestrial ecosystems

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