Does previous exposure to extreme precipitation regimes result in acclimated grassland communities?

Reynaert, Simon; Zi, Lin; AbdElgawad, Hamada; Boeck, Hans J. De; Vindušková, Olga; Nijs, Ivan; Beemster, Gerrit T.S.; Asard, Han

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156368

Cited by 6 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Legacies can also be positive, if the response to a stressor increases resistance to subsequent stressors, that is, acclimation or adaptation at an organismic or ecosystem level. Such positive legacies can be due, for example, to changes in water-use efficiency, nutrient availability or species composition, as reported for some grasslands 34,38 .…”

Section: Compound Ecoclimatic Events Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 79%

A joint framework for studying compound ecoclimatic events

Bastos

Sippel

Frank

et al. 2023

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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Extreme weather and climate events have direct impacts on ecosystems and can further trigger ecosystem disturbances, often having impacts that last longer than the event's duration. The projected increased frequency or intensity of extreme events could thus amplify ecological impacts and reduce the biosphere's CO 2 mitigation potential, but multiple feedbacks between ecosystems and climate extremes are often not considered in risk assessments. In this Perspective, we propose a systemic framework to analyse the causal relationships between climate extremes, disturbance regimes and ecosystems, building on two broadly used perspectives: climate risk assessment and disturbance ecology. Each has strengths and limitations, as each perspective places a differentand partly disjointed -focus on the physical and ecological processes that drive high-impact ecological events. We unify these approaches into a framework (compound ecoclimatic events) that decomposes events into climatic drivers, stressors, environmental factors, impacts and their sources of variability, and further incorporates feedbacks between ecosystem processes and stressors. This framework can be used to develop ecoclimatic storylines to better understand the role of each factor in influencing high-impact events; to incorporate uncertainties associated with internal climate and ecological variability, with scenario definitions, and with epistemic uncertainties; and to quantify the human fingerprint on high-impact ecoclimatic events. Sections Introduction Viewpoints on ecoclimatic eventsReframing ecoclimatic events

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Section: Compound Ecoclimatic Events Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 79%

A joint framework for studying compound ecoclimatic events

Bastos

Sippel

Frank

et al. 2023

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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“…Although IPVI generally did not change community above‐ground biomass in mesic grasslands, its stimulating effect of IPVI might accumulate over time, reflecting high resilience and acclimation in disturbed systems. IPVI might change the community composition and diversity in short term (Smith et al, 2009) and induce plant acclimation with increased productivity and attenuated molecular stress responses in the long term (Reynaert et al, 2022). Conversely, the impact of increased leaching and soil nitrogen loss on ecosystem functions is likely to be significant in the long term and thus seldom detected in short‐term studies (Beier et al, 2012; Unger & Jongen, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the magnitude of precipitation pulses may differentially affect the activity of plants and microbes due to their different response thresholds, thus altering soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics (Huxman, Snyder, et al, 2004). Considering that many ecosystems are predicted to experience more climate extremes in the future (Smith et al, 2009) and induce plant acclimation with increased productivity and attenuated molecular stress responses in the long term (Reynaert et al, 2022). Conversely, the impact of increased leaching and soil nitrogen loss on ecosystem functions is likely to be significant in the long term and thus seldom detected in short-term studies (Beier et al, 2012;Unger & Jongen, 2015).…”

Section: F I G U R Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent responses of grassland productivity and plant diversity to intra‐annual precipitation variability across climate regions: A global synthesis

Zhang

2023

Journal of Ecology

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Global warming intensifies the hydrological cycle and may result in changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation events. However, a knowledge gap still exists about the general influences of intra‐annual precipitation variability on grassland plant diversity and ecosystem function at the global scale. Here, we synthesized field manipulative experiments from 66 publications to quantify the effects of intra‐annual precipitation variability increases (IPVI) on community biomass and plant diversity in grasslands worldwide. At the global scale, we found that IPVI generally increased grassland community above‐ground biomass (AGB) by 6.90%, and decreased grass biomass and soil ammonium content by 10.38% and 25.35% respectively. IPVI increased and decreased total AGB in arid and humid regions, respectively, and IPVI enhanced grassland below‐ground biomass and plant species richness in arid regions, but showed no effect in humid regions. Furthermore, moderate IPVI stimulated plant species richness and community biomass in arid grasslands, while extreme IPVI impaired them in mesic grasslands. Changes in total AGB under IPVI were related to changes in the biomass of plant functional groups, species richness and soil moisture. Structural equation modelling demonstrated that climate conditions (mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation) and background soil properties (soil sand content and soil organic carbon content) jointly regulated grassland total AGB responses to IPVI across climate regions. Synthesis. Overall, our study shows divergent responses of grassland productivity and diversity to IPVI in arid and humid regions. Accounting for climate, edaphic properties and precipitation variability can help improve our ability to predict the responses of grassland ecosystems to future changes in precipitation at global scales.

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“…Because the impact of increasing weather persistence was shown to be mainly related to drought in the 2019 growing season (Reynaert et al, 2021), the daily averages of mean SWC values per regime were utilized to calculate different drought indices which represented the persistency of the precipitation regime. These included drought stress intensity (at relative extractable water (REW) of 0.4, 0.2 and 0.1), total time below permanent wilting point, and the length of the longest consecutive period below permanent wilting point (Reynaert et al, 2021;Reynaert et al, 2022;Vicca et al, 2012). Following Vicca et al (2012), drought stress intensity was calculated by determining a soil moisture threshold, and integrating the duration and extent to which soil moisture declined below it over the experimental period.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These regimes varied the duration of consecutive dry and wet periods from 1 to 60 days while keeping total precipitation constant (Reynaert et al, 2021). Our research questions were whether species interactions, either direct ones or HOIs, determine species biomass under altered precipitation persistence, and whether these interactions change as drought stress intensifies (i.e., the main driver of plant responses to increasing summer precipitation persistence; Reynaert et al (2021); Reynaert et al (2022)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct and higher-order interactions in plant communities under increasing weather persistence

Reynaert

Lembrechts

Boeck

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Climate change is increasing the weather persistence in the mid-latitudes, prolonging both dry and wet spells compared to historic averages. These newly emerging environmental conditions destabilize plant communities, but the role of species interactions in this process is unknown. Here, we tested how direct and higher-order interactions (HOIs) between species may change in synthesized grassland communities along an experimental gradient of increasing persistence in precipitation regimes. Our results indicate that species interactions (including HOIs) are an important determinant of plant performance under increasing weather persistence. Out of the 12 most parsimonious models predicting species productivity, 75 % contained significant direct interactions and 92 % significant HOIs. Inclusion of direct interactions or HOIs respectively tripled or quadrupled the explained variance of target species biomass compared to null models only including the precipitation treatment. Drought dominated the plant responses, with longer droughts increasing direct competition but also HOI-driven facilitation. Despite these counteracting changes, drought intensified net competition. Grasses were generally more involved in competitive interactions whereas legumes had a stronger affinity for facilitative interactions. Under longer drought, species affinity for nutrient rich or wet environments resulted in more negative direct interactions or HOIs, respectively. We conclude that higher-order interactions, crucially depending on species identity, only partially stabilize community dynamics under increasing weather persistence.

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Does previous exposure to extreme precipitation regimes result in acclimated grassland communities?

Cited by 6 publications

References 78 publications

A joint framework for studying compound ecoclimatic events

A joint framework for studying compound ecoclimatic events

Divergent responses of grassland productivity and plant diversity to intra‐annual precipitation variability across climate regions: A global synthesis

Direct and higher-order interactions in plant communities under increasing weather persistence

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