| Research Articles |
|
|
|
|
| Effects of rainfall patterns on annual plants in Horqin Sandy Land, Inner Mongolia of China |
| YUE Xiangfei1,2*, ZHANG Tonghui1, ZHAO Xueyong1, LIU Xinping1, MA Yunhua1,2 |
1 Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China;
2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China |
|
|
|
Abstract Growth of annual plants in arid environments depends largely on rainfall pulses. An increased understanding of the effects of different rainfall patterns on plant growth is critical to predicting the potential responses of plants to the changes in rainfall regimes, such as rainfall intensity and duration, and length of dry intervals. In this study, we investigated the effects of different rainfall patterns (e.g. small rainfall event with high frequency and large rainfall event with low frequency) on biomass, growth characteristics and vertical distribution of root biomass of annual plants in Horqin Sandy Land, Inner Mongolia of China during the growing season (from May to August) of 2014. Our results showed that the rainfall patterns, independent of total rainfall amount, exerted strong effects on biomass, characteristics of plant growth and vertical distribution of root biomass. Under a constant amount of total rainfall, the aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB), plant cover, plant height, and plant individual and species number increased with an increase in rainfall intensity. Changes in rainfall patterns also altered the percentage contribution of species biomass to the total AGB, and the percentage of BGB at different soil layers to the total BGB. Consequently, our results indicated that increased rainfall intensity in future may increase biomass significantly, and also affect the growth characteristics of annual plants.
|
|
Received: 16 September 2015
Published: 01 June 2016
|
| Fund: The Strategic Leading Science and Technology Projects of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA05050201-04-01)
The National Natural Science Foundation of China (41371053, 31500369)
The ‘One Hundred Talent’ Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y451H31001) |
|
Corresponding Authors:
|
|
|
| Allan R P, Soden B J. 2008. Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes. Science, 321(5895): 1481–1484. Bansal S, James J J, Sheley R L. 2014. The effects of precipitation and soil type on three invasive annual grasses in the western United States. Journal of Arid Environments, 104: 38–42. Cheng X L, An S Q, Li B, et al. 2006. Summer rain pulse size and rainwater uptake by three dominant desert plants in a desertified grassland ecosystem in northwestern China. Plant Ecology, 184(1): 1–12. Chesson P, Gebauer R L E, Schwinning S, et al. 2004. Resource pulses, species interactions, and diversity maintenance in arid and semi-arid environments. Oecologia, 141(2): 236–253. Cleland E E, Collins S L, Dickson T L, et al. 2013. Sensitivity of grassland plant community composition to spatial vs. temporal variation in precipitation. Ecology, 94(8): 1687–1696. Fay P A, Carlisle J D, Knapp A K, et al. 2003. Productivity responses to altered rainfall patterns in a C4-dominated grassland. Oecologia, 137(2): 245–251. Fernandez-Going B M, Anacker B L, Harrison S P. 2012. Temporal variability in California grasslands: soil type and species functional traits mediate response to precipitation. Ecology, 93(9): 2104–2114. Grime J P, Fridley J D, Askew A P, et al. 2008. Long-term resistance to simulated climate change in an infertile grassland. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(29): 10028–10032. Heisler-White J L, Knapp A K, Kelly E F. 2008. Increasing precipitation event size increases aboveground net primary productivity in a semi-arid grassland. Oecologia, 158(1): 129–140. Heisler-White J L, Blair J M, Kelly E F, et al. 2009. Contingent productivity responses to more extreme rainfall regimes across a grassland biome. Global Change Biology, 15(12): 2894–2904. Hsu J S, Powell J, Adler P B. 2012. Sensitivity of mean annual primary production to precipitation. Global Change Biology, 18(7): 2246–2255. Hsu J S, Adler P B. 2014. Anticipating changes in variability of grassland production due to increases in interannual precipitation variability. Ecosphere, 5(5), doi: 10.1890/ES13-00210.1.Hu Z M, Fan J W, Zhong H P, et al. 2007. Spatiotemporal dynamics of aboveground primary productivity along a precipitation gradient in Chinese temperate grassland. Science in China Series D: Earth Sciences, 50(5): 754–764. Huxman T E, Snyder K A, Tissue D, et al. 2004. Precipitation pulses and carbon fluxes in semiarid and arid ecosystems. Oecologia, 141(2): 254–268. IPCC. 2007. Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change: Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knapp A K, Fay P A, Blair J M, et al. 2002. Rainfall variability, carbon cycling, and plant species diversity in a mesic grassland. Science, 298(5601): 2202–2205. Knapp A K, Beier C, Briske D D, et al. 2008. Consequences of more extreme precipitation regimes for terrestrial ecosystems. Bioscience, 58(9): 811–821. Lauenroth W K, Bradford J B. 2009. Ecohydrology of dry regions of the United States: precipitation pulses and intra-seasonal drought. Ecohydrology, 2(2): 173–181. Lauenroth W K, Schlaepfer D R, Bradford J B. 2014. Ecohydrology of dry regions: Storage versus pulse soil water dynamics. Ecosystems, 17(8): 1469–1479. Loik M E, Breshears D D, Lauenroth W K, et al. 2004. A multi-scale perspective of water pulses in dryland ecosystems: climatology and ecohydrology of the western USA. Oecologia, 141(2): 269–281. McKinney M L, Lockwood J L. 1999. Biotic homogenization: a few winners replacing many losers in the next mass extinction. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 14(11): 450–453.Miranda J D, Padilla F M, Lázaro R, et al. 2009. Do changes in rainfall patterns affect semiarid annual plant communities? Journal of Vegetation Sciences, 20(2): 269–276. Noy-Meir I. 1973. Desert ecosystems: environment and producers. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4(1): 25–51. Sala O E, Lauenroth W K, Parton W J, et al. 1981. Water status of soil and vegetation in a shortgrass steppe. Oecologia, 48(3): 327–331. Sala O E, Lauenroth W K. 1982. Small rainfall events: an ecological role in semiarid regions. Oecologia, 53(3): 301–304. Schwinning S, Sala O E. 2004. Hierarchy of responses to resource pulses in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Oecologia, 141(2): 211–220. Shannon C E, Wiener W J. 1949. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Su Y Z, Li Y L, Zhao H L. 2006. Soil properties and their spatial pattern in a degraded sandy grassland under post-grazing restoration, Inner Mongolia, northern China. Biogeochemistry, 79(3): 297–314. Swemmer A M, Knapp A K, Snyman H A. 2007. Intra-seasonal precipitation patterns and above-ground productivity in three perennial grasslands. Journal of Ecology, 95(4): 780–788. Thomey M L, Collins S L, Vargas R, et al. 2011. Effect of precipitation variability on net primary production and soil respiration in a Chihuahuan desert grassland. Global Change Biology, 17(4): 1505–1515. Weltzin J F, Loik M E, Schwinning S, et al. 2003. Assessing the response of terrestrial ecosystems to potential changes in precipitation. Bioscience, 53(10): 941–952. Yang Y H, Fang J Y, Ma W H, et al. 2008. Relationship between variability in aboveground net primary production and precipitation in global grasslands. Geophysical Research Letters, 35(23): L23710, doi: 10.1029/2008GL035408. Zhou X H, Talley M, Luo Y Q. 2009. Biomass, litter, and soil respiration along a precipitation gradient in southern Great Plains, USA. Ecosystems, 12(8): 1369–1380. Zhu Z D, Chen G T. 1994. The Sandy Desertification in China. Beijing: Science Press. (in Chinese) |
|
Viewed |
|
|
|
Full text
|
|
|
|
|
Abstract
|
|
|
|
|
Cited |
|
|
|
|
| |
Shared |
|
|
|
|
| |
Discussed |
|
|
|
|
