Projected global change will increase the level of land-use and environmental stressors such as drought and grazing, particularly in drylands. Still, combined effects of drought and grazing on plant production are poorly understood, thus hampering adequate projections and development of mitigation strategies. We used a large, cross-continental database consisting of 174 long-term datasets from >30 dryland regions to quantify ecosystem responses to drought and grazing with the ultimate goal to increase functional understanding in these responses. Two key aspects of ecosystem stability, resistance to and recovery after a drought, were evaluated based on standardized and normalized aboveground net primary production (ANPP) data. Drought intensity was quantified using the standardized precipitation index. We tested effects of drought intensity, grazing regime (grazed, ungrazed), biome (grassland, shrubland, savanna) or dominant life history (annual, perennial) of the herbaceous layer to assess the relative importance of these factors for ecosystem stability, and to identify predictable relationships between drought intensity and ecosystem resistance and recovery. We found that both components of ecosystem stability were better explained by dominant herbaceous life history than by biome. Increasing drought intensity (quasi-) linearly reduced ecosystem resistance. Even though annual and perennial systems showed the same response rate to increasing drought intensity, they differed in their general magnitude of resistance, with annual systems being ca. 27% less resistant. In contrast, systems with an herbaceous layer dominated by annuals had substantially higher postdrought recovery, particularly when grazed. Combined effects of drought and grazing were not merely additive but modulated by dominant life history of the herbaceous layer. To the best of our knowledge, our study established the first predictive, cross-continental model between drought intensity and drought-related relative losses in ANPP, and suggests that systems with an herbaceous layer dominated by annuals are more prone to ecosystem degradation under future global change regimes.

Questions In drylands above‐ground net primary production (ANPP) and rain‐use efficiency (RUE) are common ecological indicators for assessing ecosystem state, including degradation and supply of key ecosystem services. However, both indicators have been criticized as ‘lumped’ parameters, since they aggregate complex information. Their value as ecological parameters in decision‐making and their use in ecological modelling therefore have been challenged and their explanatory power remains unclear. Furthermore, there is no consensus about the response of ANPP and RUE along precipitation gradients. Methods Taking advantage of several long‐term studies in (semi‐)arid environments where ANPP and RUE were recorded, we compiled a data set of 923 yr. We used meta‐analysis to disentangle the effects of different ecological layers (climate, soil and land use) on ANPP and RUE. Linear piece‐wise quantile regression (LPQR) was used to analyse the response of maximum and median ANPP and RUE as functions of precipitation. We assumed that looking at maximum response (instead of ‘average’ response) stratified for land‐use intensity was an ecologically more plausible way to understand ANPP constrained by precipitation and land use. Results We separated the impact of different environmental factors into distinct, quantitative effect sizes with the aid of meta‐analyses. ANPP was affected by recent and previous precipitation, land use, soil and biome. LPQR revealed that both parameters displayed several sequential linear intersects, which together formed a unimodal trend, peaking around precipitation of 200 mm yr−1. Unimodal response was more pronounced for maximum values (ANPPmax, RUEmax) than for median values. Peak ANPPmax and RUEmax, as well as post‐peak decline (>200 mm yr−1) were affected by land use: higher land‐use intensity decreased intercepts and increases post‐peak decline. Conclusions Our results have important consequences for the use of RUE as an ecosystem indicator and a tool in ecosystem monitoring and decision‐making. Most importantly, grasslands, shrublands and savannas significantly differ in their primary production, with a biome‐specific importance of precipitation, land use and previous year's precipitation. We thus propose to establish biome‐specific reference values of maximum and average RUE. Our study also contributes to reconcile contradictory findings for ANPP and RUE response along precipitation gradients of varying length.

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