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Effects of rainfall pattern on the growth and fecundity of a dominant dune annual in a semi-arid ecosystem

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Abstract

Aims

Current and future changes in rainfall patterns – amount and frequency – may particularly impact annual plants in semi-arid ecosystems. The aim of this study was to investigate how changes in rainfall patterns affect the growth and fecundity of sand dune annuals.

Methods

The effects of gradients in five rainfall amounts and five frequencies, based on historical and predicted values, on growth and fecundity of Agriophyllum squarrosum, a dominant annual in Mu Us Sandland, were examined in the near natural habitat.

Results

Rainfall amount and frequency significantly affected all vegetative and reproductive traits. With decreased amount of rainfall, height, biomass, seed number, seed mass and reproductive effort decreased, while root/shoot ratio increased. Except for the two extreme frequencies (1- and 120-day intervals), values of all vegetative and reproductive traits increased with the increase of rainfall frequencies. Germinability of offspring seeds tended to increase with increasing aridity, suggesting that a maternal effect may have been present.

Conclusions

Our study shows that the plastic response in growth and fecundity of A. squarrosum to rainfall fluctuation allows the plant to survive and reproduce under current unpredictable environments as well as the increased variability predicted with climate change in semi-arid regions.

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Acknowledgments

Funds of this study were provided by the National Science and Technology Support Program (2012BAC01B05; 2012BAD16B03) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370705). This study was also supported by a Chinese Academy of Sciences Visiting Professorship for Senior International Scientists (2012T1S0004) to Prof. Jeffrey L. Walck.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Ruiru Gao, Xuejun Yang, Guofang Liu & Zhenying Huang

  2. The College of Life Science, Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, 041004, China

    Ruiru Gao

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Ruiru Gao

  4. Evolution and Ecology Group, Department of Biology, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Jeffrey L. Walck

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  1. Ruiru Gao
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  2. Xuejun Yang
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  4. Zhenying Huang
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  5. Jeffrey L. Walck
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhenying Huang.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Hans Lambers.

RG, XY and ZH conceived and designed the experiments. RG, XY, GL, FY, JW and ZH performed the experiments and analyzed the data. RG, XY, ZH, and JW wrote the manuscript.

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Gao, R., Yang, X., Liu, G. et al. Effects of rainfall pattern on the growth and fecundity of a dominant dune annual in a semi-arid ecosystem. Plant Soil 389, 335–347 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-014-2366-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-014-2366-4

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