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Warming and grazing interact to affect root dynamics in an alpine meadow

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Abstract

Aims

Root dynamics plays a fundamental role in determining carbon allocation and other main ecological processes in grasslands. Understanding the responses of root activities to ongoing warming in grazed alpine meadows enable us to predict the potential changes in the carbon budget and ecosystem functions in alpine regions.

Methods

We conducted a controlled 4-year field experiment with warming and grazing in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Our objective was to explore the responses of root standing crop, production, mortality and turnover rate to warming and grazing using minirhizotrons.

Results

Warming only significantly inhibited root mortality while grazing promoted all the four root metrics, which were also significantly influenced by the interaction of warming and grazing. Warming oppositely affected the four metrics under grazing versus non-grazing conditions. It significantly reduced root mean standing crop, annual production and mortality without grazing, but significantly stimulated only mean standing crop under grazing. Grazing had significantly negative and positive effects on mean standing crop in the no warming and warming plots. It promoted annual root production and mortality regardless of warming, whereas the effects were significant only under warming condition. Moreover, grazing significantly increased turnover rate in no warming plots but slightly decreased it in warming plots.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the non-additive interactions on the alpine meadow root dynamics between warming and grazing. Therefore, grazing regimes should be considered to better model the ecosystem feedback to global warming and to improve the prediction of future ecosystem functions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Fawei Zhang, Zhenhua Zhang and Yaoming Li for help with field work, Lirong Zhang and Xiao Chen for help with structural equation modeling. This study was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0501802), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31971494) and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY19D010001). The work was also sponsored by the K.C.Wong Magna Fund of Ningbo University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil and Environment Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China

    Yibo Wu

  2. Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China

    Biao Zhu & Yanhong Tang

  3. Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16801, USA

    David M. Eissenstat

  4. Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China

    Shiping Wang

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

    Xiaoyong Cui

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

    Xiaoyong Cui

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  1. Yibo Wu
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  2. Biao Zhu
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  3. David M. Eissenstat
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  4. Shiping Wang
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  5. Yanhong Tang
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Correspondence to Xiaoyong Cui.

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Wu, Y., Zhu, B., Eissenstat, D.M. et al. Warming and grazing interact to affect root dynamics in an alpine meadow. Plant Soil 459, 109–124 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04681-3

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