Abstract
Aims
We evaluated the impacts of altered precipitation regimes on multiple aspects of the C cycle, including C fluxes, plant and soil microbial communities, and plant-soil interactions in a south-eastern Australian grassland.
Methods
Our experimental treatments, operated through an automated system, included: (i) reduced and (ii) increased rainfall amount by 50%, (iii) reduced rainfall frequency but no change in amount (i.e., more extreme downpours), (iv) and an extreme summer drought.
Results
Temporal dynamics of ecosystem-level CO2 fluxes fluctuated seasonally and were driven by variations in soil water availability, soil temperature and photosynthetically active radiation. Reducing the frequency of rainfall events, but without change in the amount of rainfall, resulted in lower ecosystem-level net CO2 uptake due to relatively greater Reco stimulation after the heavy downpours, particularly during the late summer season. The extreme summer drought downregulated both respiration and photosynthesis. Microbial abundance and activity did not change in response to rainfall manipulation and were not strongly related to precipitation-driven changes in C cycling. In contrast, a greater proportion of live to dead plant biomass, in turn driven by greater water availability, was a main driver of greater respiration and photosynthesis.
Conclusions
Our study suggests that grasslands could shift from net C sinks to C neutral or even net sources of C under future scenarios of more variable rainfall regimes, thus reinforcing climate change.
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Acknowledgements
This work is part of the Master Thesis in Environmental Management of Valentina Arca held at the University of Sassari with research work carried at Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment. We acknowledge the technical skills and on-going support of colleagues involved in the design, construction and maintenance of the facility, especially Uffe Nielsen, Scott Johnson, Kirk L. Barnett, Burhan Amiji, Craig Barton, David Tissue and Goran Lopaticki. The DRI-Grass facility was constructed with funds from Western Sydney University. Research activity was supported by a project grant to SAP and SNJ from the Hermon Slade Foundation (P00021516) and funding provided by Western Sydney University. Valentina Arca received two “Ulisse” scholarships (L.R. 3/09) from 01/09/2014 to 30/06/2017 from the University of Sassari in collaboration with the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment. R.O.-H. is financially supported by a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship from MICIU (RYC-2017-22032) and projects (PID2019-106004RA-I00). M.D-B. is financially supported by the Ramón y Cajal program from the MICIU (RYC2018-025483-I).
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ROH conceived the study. SAP designed the facility. EP designed the chamber. VA and ROH carried out the fieldwork. VA, ROH and MDB carried out laboratory analyses. VA and ROH wrote the first version of the manuscript. All authors commented on subsequent versions of the manuscript.
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Arca, V., Power, S.A., Delgado-Baquerizo, M. et al. Seasonal effects of altered precipitation regimes on ecosystem-level CO2 fluxes and their drivers in a grassland from Eastern Australia. Plant Soil 460, 435–451 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04811-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04811-x