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Responses of plant community coverage to simulated warming and nitrogen addition in a desert steppe in Northern China

  • Original Article
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Ecological Research

Abstract

Grassland communities occupy about 25 % of global land area and global warming could alter grassland plant community coverage. A field study was conducted to investigate the impact of soil warming (surface soil temperature increased by 1.3 °C) and nitrogen addition (100 kg N ha−1 year−1) on a desert steppe community in Inner Mongolia, China, from 2006 to 2011. Although there were strong intra- and inter-annual variations, in general, warming had little effect on coverage of the four major species (two cool season C3 species: Convolvulus ammannii and Stipa breviflora, and two warm season C4 species: Cleistogenes songorica and Kochia prostrata) over six growing seasons. The C3/C4 coverage ratio consistently decreased with warming, with the decrease being statistically significant for one-third of sampling dates. Warming caused a reduction (from 27.6 to 25.1 %) in peak season total plant community coverage. N addition did not affect the four main species, four functional groups (perennial grass, perennial forb, shrub and annual-biennial) or the total plant community over the 6 years, except when precipitation was high (231 mm in 2008). The small reduction in plant community coverage demonstrated the resilience of desert steppe to warming. There could be a shift of C3 to C4 species because of warming, as indicated by the decrease in C3/C4 ratio, but confirmation of this trend requires further study.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Xinjie Zhang, Pei Zhou, Zhongwu Wang, Qi’er An and Xiaoliang Wang for their help in field measurements, and Guogang Zhang for his helpful comments. This study was funded by the Innovative Research Team of MOE (IRT 1259), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31270502), the National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB138801) and innovation project (CAAS-ASTIP-IGR 2015-05-17).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Grassland Science, College of Ecology and Environmental Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, 306 Zhaowuda Road, Hohhot, 010019, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China

    Zhen Wang, Mengli Zhao & Guodong Han

  2. Institute of Grassland Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot, 010010, People’s Republic of China

    Zhen Wang & Yuanheng Li

  3. Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Lethbridge Research Centre, 5403 1st Ave S, Lethbridge, AB, Canada

    Xiying Hao

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  1. Zhen Wang
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  2. Yuanheng Li
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  4. Mengli Zhao
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Correspondence to Guodong Han.

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Wang, Z., Li, Y., Hao, X. et al. Responses of plant community coverage to simulated warming and nitrogen addition in a desert steppe in Northern China. Ecol Res 30, 605–614 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-015-1265-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-015-1265-3

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