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Effects of elevated CO2, warming and precipitation change on plant growth, photosynthesis and peroxidation in dominant species from North China grassland

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Abstract

Warming, watering and elevated atmospheric CO2-concentration effects have been extensively studied separately; however, their combined impact on plants is not well understood. In the current research, we examined plant growth and physiological responses of three dominant species from the Eurasian Steppe with different functional traits to a combination of elevated CO2, high temperature, and four simulated precipitation patterns. Elevated CO2 stimulated plant growth by 10.8–41.7 % for a C3 leguminous shrub, Caragana microphylla, and by 33.2–52.3 % for a C3 grass, Stipa grandis, across all temperature and watering treatments. Elevated CO2, however, did not affect plant biomass of a C4 grass, Cleistogenes squarrosa, under normal or increased precipitation, whereas a 20.0–69.7 % stimulation of growth occurred with elevated CO2 under drought conditions. Plant growth was enhanced in the C3 shrub and the C4 grass by warming under normal precipitation, but declined drastically with severe drought. The effects of elevated CO2 on leaf traits, biomass allocation and photosynthetic potential were remarkably species-dependent. Suppression of photosynthetic activity, and enhancement of cell peroxidation by a combination of warming and severe drought, were partly alleviated by elevated CO2. The relationships between plant functional traits and physiological activities and their responses to climate change were discussed. The present results suggested that the response to CO2 enrichment may strongly depend on the response of specific species under varying patterns of precipitation, with or without warming, highlighting that individual species and multifactor dependencies must be considered in a projection of terrestrial ecosystem response to climatic change.

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Abbreviations

F v/F m :

Maximal efficiency of PSII photochemistry

J max :

Maximum rate of electron transport

LARMR:

Leaf area and root mass ratio

LMR:

Leaf mass ratio

RGR:

Relative growth rate

MDA:

Malondialdehyde

PCA:

Principal component analysis

PSII:

Photosystem II

RMR:

Root mass ratio

SLA:

Specific leaf area

SSL:

Specific stem length

SMR:

Stem mass ratio

V c,max :

Maximum rate of carboxylation

×:

Sign for combination or interaction treatments

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the National Basic Research Program of China (2010CB951301), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31170456), State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change (2011zyts09), and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (P07622). We greatly thank all researchers for their loyal help during the present study. The authors also appreciate the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20 Nanxincun, Xiangshan, Haidian, Beijing, 100093, People’s Republic of China

    Zhenzhu Xu, Guangsheng Zhou & Yuanrun Zheng

  2. Center for Regional Environmental Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8506, Japan

    Zhenzhu Xu, Hideyuki Shimizu, Shoko Ito, Yasumi Yagasaki & Chunjing Zou

  3. Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, People’s Republic of China

    Chunjing Zou

  4. Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, 46 Zhongguancun South Street, Haidian, Beijing, 100081, China

    Guangsheng Zhou

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  1. Zhenzhu Xu
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  2. Hideyuki Shimizu
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Correspondence to Zhenzhu Xu.

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Xu, Z., Shimizu, H., Ito, S. et al. Effects of elevated CO2, warming and precipitation change on plant growth, photosynthesis and peroxidation in dominant species from North China grassland. Planta 239, 421–435 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-013-1987-9

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