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Spatial patterns of soil and ecosystem respiration regulated by biological and environmental variables along a precipitation gradient in semi-arid grasslands in China

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Ecological Research

Abstract

Precipitation is a key environmental factor in determining ecosystem structure and function. Knowledge of how soil and ecosystem respiration responds to climate change (e.g., precipitation) and human activities (e.g., grazing or clipping) is crucial for assessing the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems and for improving model simulations and predictions of future global carbon (C) cycling in response to human activities. In this study, we examined the spatial patterns of soil and ecosystem respiration along a precipitation gradient from 167.7 to 398.1 mm in a semi-arid grassland. Our results showed that soil and ecosystem respiration increased linearly with increasing mean annual precipitation. The trends were similar to those of shoot biomass, litter and soil total C content along the precipitation gradient. Our results indicated that precipitation was the primary controlling factor in determining the spatial pattern of soil and ecosystem respiration in semi-arid grasslands in China. The linear/nonlinear relationships in this study describing the variations of the ecosystem carbon process with precipitation can be useful for model development, parameterization and validation at the regional scale to improve predictions of how carbon processes in grasslands respond to climate change, land use and grassland management.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2010CB833502). We thank Jianbin Gu and Linhe Li for their assistance in the field and lab work. We are grateful to Siziwang Banner, Xilinhot of the Inner Mongolian Grassland Ecosystem Research Station (IMGERS) and herdsmen for providing the experimental sites.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730000, China

    Wenfang Xu & Wenping Yuan

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

    Wenfang Xu

  3. College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xianglan Li

  4. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Wei Liu, Linghao Li & Huiqiu Shi

  5. Department of Grassland Science, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Longyu Hou

  6. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing/Zhuhai, 100875/519087, China

    Jiangzhou Xia, Dan Liu, Haicheng Zhang, Yang Chen, Wenwen Cai, Yang Fu & Wenping Yuan

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  1. Wenfang Xu
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  2. Xianglan Li
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  3. Wei Liu
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  4. Linghao Li
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  10. Yang Chen
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  11. Wenwen Cai
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  13. Wenping Yuan
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Linghao Li or Wenping Yuan.

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Xu, W., Li, X., Liu, W. et al. Spatial patterns of soil and ecosystem respiration regulated by biological and environmental variables along a precipitation gradient in semi-arid grasslands in China. Ecol Res 31, 505–513 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-016-1355-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-016-1355-x

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