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Global environmental change and the nature of aboveground net primary productivity responses: insights from long-term experiments

  • Special Topic: Coordinated approaches to global change research
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Abstract

Many global change drivers chronically alter resource availability in terrestrial ecosystems. Such resource alterations are known to affect aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in the short term; however, it is unknown if patterns of response change through time. We examined the magnitude, direction, and pattern of ANPP responses to a wide range of global change drivers by compiling 73 datasets from long-term (>5 years) experiments that varied by ecosystem type, length of manipulation, and the type of manipulation. Chronic resource alterations resulted in a significant change in ANPP irrespective of ecosystem type, the length of the experiment, and the resource manipulated. However, the pattern of ecosystem response over time varied with ecosystem type and manipulation length. Continuous directional responses were the most common pattern observed in herbaceous-dominated ecosystems. Continuous directional responses also were frequently observed in longer-term experiments (>11 years) and were, in some cases, accompanied by large shifts in community composition. In contrast, stepped responses were common in forests and other ecosystems (salt marshes and dry valleys) and with nutrient manipulations. Our results suggest that the response of ANPP to chronic resource manipulations can be quite variable; however, responses persist once they occur, as few transient responses were observed. Shifts in plant community composition over time could be important determinants of patterns of terrestrial ecosystem sensitivity, but comparative, long-term studies are required to understand how and why ecosystems differ in their sensitivity to chronic resource alterations.

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Acknowledgments

This synthesis effort was a product of an LTER Working Group entitled “Long-term experiments in the LTER Network: synthesis and hypothesis testing.” We thank the participants of the working group for their contributions; S. McNulty, J. Boggs, P. Edwards, F. Wood, and R. Oren for providing data for this analysis; and the LTER Network Office for providing support. We thank four anonymous reviewers for providing comments on previous versions of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Melinda D. Smith & Alan K. Knapp

  2. Department of Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Kimberly J. La Pierre

  3. Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Scott L. Collins

  4. W. K. Kellogg Biological Station and Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI, USA

    Katherine L. Gross

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    John E. Barrett

  6. Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

    Serita D. Frey

  7. Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

    Laura Gough

  8. Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Robert J. Miller

  9. Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    James T. Morris

  10. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Durham, NH, USA

    Lindsey E. Rustad

  11. Department of Natural Resources Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA

    John Yarie

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  1. Melinda D. Smith
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Correspondence to Melinda D. Smith.

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Communicated by Russell K. Monson.

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Smith, M.D., La Pierre, K.J., Collins, S.L. et al. Global environmental change and the nature of aboveground net primary productivity responses: insights from long-term experiments. Oecologia 177, 935–947 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3230-9

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