Combined effects of warming and drought on plant biomass depend on plant woodiness and community type: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Global warming and precipitation extremes (drought or increased precipitation) strongly affect plant primary production and thereby terrestrial ecosystem functioning. Recent syntheses show that combined effects of warming and precipitation extremes on plant biomass are generally additive, while individual experiments often show interactive effects, indicating that combined effects are more negative or positive than expected based on the effects of single factors. Here, we examined whether variation in biomass responses to single and combined effects of warming and precipitation extremes can be explained by plant growth form and community type. We performed a meta-analysis of 37 studies, which experimentally crossed warming and precipitation treatments, to test whether biomass responses to combined effects of warming and precipitation extremes depended on plant woodiness and community type (monocultures versus mixtures). Our results confirmed that the effects of warming and precipitation extremes were overall additive. However, combined effects of warming and drought on above- and belowground biomass were less negative in woody- than in herbaceous plant systems and more negative in plant mixtures than in monocultures. We further show that drought effects on plant biomass were more negative in greenhouse- than in field studies, suggesting that greenhouse experiments may overstate drought effects in the field. Our results highlight the importance of plant system characteristics to better understand plant responses to climate change.

Phenological evolution in annual plants under light competition, changes in the growth season and mass loss

“…Mass loss can be caused by a wide range of abiotic or biotic processes. Frequent droughts, heat waves and wildfires, for example, are common abiotic effects of climate change that can cause vegetation mass loss (Liu et al., 2021 ; Wilschut et al., 2022 ) both at the individual plant level and population level. In contrast, plant diseases caused by viruses, bacteria or fungi, as well as herbivory are common biotic effects that cause vegetation mass loss (Bale et al., 2002 ; Bebber et al., 2014 ; Garrett et al., 2006 ; Pautasso et al., 2012 ; Ristaino et al., 2021 ; Singh et al., 2023 ; Tibpromma et al., 2021 ).…”

Unveiling the drives behind tetracycline adsorption capacity with biochar through machine learning

“…Experimental data for the adsorption of tetracycline by biochar were collected from ten papers, including 22 biochar species and 295 sets of experimental adsorption data 9 , 19 – 28 . Without author bias, the related articles were selected randomly and data were extracted from published papers using Plot Digitizer v3 ( https://plotdigitizer.com/#download ) 29 . Detailed data are provided in the supplementary materials (Tables S1 , S2 ).…”

Research advances in mechanisms of climate change impacts on soil organic carbon dynamics

“…C inputs to soil from belowground sources include root biomass and rhizodeposition (Hirte et al 2018), which Both warming and insufficient precipitation have been found to reduce the photosynthesis rate, while elevated eCO 2 tends to increase it, impacting biomass. However, Wilschut et al (2022) emphasized that the combined effects of warming and drought Climate change affects root traits, exudate secretion rate, types, and contents, influencing SOC stability. A meta-analysis shows that warming generally increases fine root biomass, productivity, respiration, and N concentration, while decreasing the root C/N ratio and non-structural carbohydrates.…”