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Disentangling root responses to climate change in a semiarid grassland

  • Global change ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Future ecosystem properties of grasslands will be driven largely by belowground biomass responses to climate change, which are challenging to understand due to experimental and technical constraints. We used a multi-faceted approach to explore single and combined impacts of elevated CO2 and warming on root carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics in a temperate, semiarid, native grassland at the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment experiment. To investigate the indirect, moisture mediated effects of elevated CO2, we included an irrigation treatment. We assessed root standing mass, morphology, residence time and seasonal appearance/disappearance of community-aggregated roots, as well as mass and N losses during decomposition of two dominant grass species (a C3 and a C4). In contrast to what is common in mesic grasslands, greater root standing mass under elevated CO2 resulted from increased production, unmatched by disappearance. Elevated CO2 plus warming produced roots that were longer, thinner and had greater surface area, which, together with greater standing biomass, could potentially alter root function and dynamics. Decomposition increased under environmental conditions generated by elevated CO2, but not those generated by warming, likely due to soil desiccation with warming. Elevated CO2, particularly under warming, slowed N release from C4—but not C3—roots, and consequently could indirectly affect N availability through treatment effects on species composition. Elevated CO2 and warming effects on root morphology and decomposition could offset increased C inputs from greater root biomass, thereby limiting future net C accrual in this semiarid grassland.

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Acknowledgments

We thank David Smith, Erik Hardy and Matthew Parsons for their technical assistance and Joanne Newcomb, Jennifer Bell, Hannah Munn, Courtney Ellis, Christine Rumsey, Jana Heisler-White, Sun Wei, Lyndsy Soltau, Lindsay Ross, Lana MacDonald, Janet Chen for assistance in the field and in the laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant no. 1021559 DEB), USDA-CSREES Soil Processes Program (Grant no. 2008-35107-18655), the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science (BER) through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program, the Western Regional Center of the National Institute for Climatic Change Research at Northern Arizona University, and by the Australian Research Council (FT100100779).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany and Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    Yolima Carrillo & Elise Pendall

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, University of Sydney, Level 4, Biomedical Building-C81, Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh, NSW, 2015, Australia

    Yolima Carrillo & Feike A. Dijkstra

  3. USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit, Crops Research Laboratory, 1701 Center Ave, Fort Collins, CO, 80526, USA

    Dan LeCain, Jack A. Morgan & Dana Blumenthal

  4. USDA-ARS, Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory, 1701 10th Avenue SW, Mandan, ND, 58554, USA

    Sarah Waldron

  5. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney, UWS Hawkesbury Campus, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia

    Yolima Carrillo & Elise Pendall

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  1. Yolima Carrillo
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  2. Feike A. Dijkstra
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  3. Dan LeCain
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Correspondence to Yolima Carrillo.

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Communicated by Susanne Schwinning.

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Carrillo, Y., Dijkstra, F.A., LeCain, D. et al. Disentangling root responses to climate change in a semiarid grassland. Oecologia 175, 699–711 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2912-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2912-z

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