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Grasslands Maintain Stability in Productivity Through Compensatory Effects and Dominant Species Stability Under Extreme Precipitation Patterns

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Abstract

Extreme climatic events are likely to intensify under climate change and can have different effects on ecosystems depending on their timing and magnitude. Understanding how productivity responds to extreme precipitation patterns requires assessing stability and vulnerability during critical growing periods at the plant community level. In this study, we experimentally imposed two contrasting types of extreme precipitation patterns, including extreme drought (excluding all rainfall for 30 consecutive days) during early-, mid-, and late-stages of the growing season, and heavy rainfall (adding 14.1 mm of rainfall every day for 20 consecutive days) during mid- and late-stages of the growing season over four years (2013–2016) in a steppe community in Inner Mongolia, China. We found that extreme drought and heavy rainfall had no effect on community aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), species richness, and dominance at any stage of the growing season. Community stability in response to extreme drought was mainly driven by compensation among species and the stability of dominant species, while the compensatory effect among species and functional groups, and the stability of dominant species contributed to the community stability in response to heavy rainfall. Overall, our findings indicate that the responses of the ecosystem to intra-seasonal contrasting extreme precipitation patterns can be driven by similar stability mechanisms and suggest that semiarid temperate steppe communities may have strong initial resistance to more frequent extreme climatic events in the future.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the funds for National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42041005 and 31761123001) and the CAS Strategic Priority Research Programmer (A) (Grant No. XDA20050103 and XDA19030202). S. Munson was supported by the US Geological Survey Ecosystems Mission Area. Any use of trade, product or firm names in this article is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

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Author notes

  1. Wenlan Gao and Linfeng Li have contributed equally to this work.

  2. YB Hao conceived of and designed the study. LF Li performed the research. WL Gao, LF Li and YB Hao analyzed the data. WL Gao, SM Munson, and YB Hao wrote the paper. Other authors contributed to the writing and provided editorial advice.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wenlan Gao, Linfeng Li, Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang & Yanbin Hao

  2. Yanshan Earth Critical Zone and Surface Fluxes National Research Station, Beijing, 101408, China

    Wenlan Gao, Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang & Yanbin Hao

  3. Environmental Futures Research Institute, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, 4111, Australia

    Linfeng Li

  4. Southwest Biological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona, 86001, USA

    Seth M. Munson

  5. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, 100101, China

    Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang & Yanbin Hao

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  1. Wenlan Gao
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Gao, W., Li, L., Munson, S.M. et al. Grasslands Maintain Stability in Productivity Through Compensatory Effects and Dominant Species Stability Under Extreme Precipitation Patterns. Ecosystems 25, 1150–1165 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-021-00706-9

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