Greater effect of warming on community composition with increased precipitation and in moister landscape location

Ronk, Argo; Liancourt, Pierre; Boldgiv, Bazartseren; Petraitis, Peter S.; Casper, Brenda B.

doi:10.1111/jvs.12813

Cited by 5 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(104 reference statements)

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“…steppe populations), although it did not seem to influence growth. On the one hand, this context dependency in the effect of warmer temperature, depending on the soil moisture, aligns with recent experimental evidences from other cold systems (Cowles, Boldgiv, Liancourt, Petraitis, & Casper, 2018; Ronk, Liancourt, Boldgiv, Petraitis, & Casper, 2020) and global scale observations (Myers‐Smith et al., 2020; Zhang, Parazoo, Williams, Zhou, & Gentine, 2020). On the other hand, the promotion of growth at the cold end with warmer temperature and the absence of growth decline at the warmer end of the elevation range contradicts some common beliefs that cold‐adapted plants may suffer from rapid warming by exceeding their thermal optimum (Cowles et al., 2018; Wertin, Reed, & Belnap, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Contrasting Climate Controls Over Recruitment and Growth Asupporting

confidence: 88%

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Climate warming drives Himalayan alpine plant growth and recruitment dynamics

et al. 2020

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Understanding how climate influences plant reproduction and growth at contrasting range limits is crucial for predicting how species' ranges may shift in response to ongoing climate change. Trees and shrubs have shown warming‐induced increases in performance at upper elevation limits but reduced performance at lower distributional limits due to warming‐driven drought limitation. Whether these differential responses are also valid for alpine forbs exposed to accelerated warming remains largely unknown. We examined climate signal recorded in annual growth and recruitment over the past 60 years in the alpine forb Potentilla pamirica in Western Himalayas, and tested whether the responses to recent climate warming differ between dry steppe, wet alpine and cold subnival zone within the species 5,250–5,900 m elevation range. We reconstructed recruitment and growth chronologies from 1,019 individuals spanning 1–73 years, and more than 21,500 annual growth rings. We identified contrasting climatic controls of recruitment and growth at opposite elevation range margins, as well as contrasting demographic trends identified from age distributions. In lower‐elevation steppes, recruitment increased with high late‐winter snowfall and decreased with high summer temperatures, while growth increased with high summer precipitation. Conversely, warm winters and summers in higher‐elevation alpine and subnival zones support growth and recruitment, while snowy winters reduce them, especially at their upper elevation limit. The age distribution revealed greater numbers of younger individuals, indicating healthy growing populations, in the alpine habitat, while evidence of ageing plant populations was observed in steppe and subnival zones. Accelerated warming since the 1990s reduced growth and recruitment in dry steppes while supporting plant performance in the alpine habitat. The recruitment in the subnival zone did not peak during the past warmest decade due to concomitant extreme snowfall events. Synthesis. Our results provide novel information on population‐specific climate dependency of plant recruitment, growth and population dynamics, suggesting the high vulnerability of high‐elevation Himalayan ecosystems to climate change. This is partly balanced by high species longevity and slow radial growth securing a long‐term population persistence. Continuing trends of extreme snowfall events at higher elevations and droughts at lower elevations may lead to species range contraction.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Contrasting Climate Controls Over Recruitment and Growth Asupporting

confidence: 88%

Climate warming drives Himalayan alpine plant growth and recruitment dynamics

et al. 2020

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“…For example, evidence from the tundra showed that warming typically supports many vascular species, shrubs, and fewer cryptogams 36 . A study in the northern Mongolian steppe found that locally restricted species are more sensitive to warming than more widespread species, based on their narrower niche breadth 37 . Fertile or early successional grasslands, composed of fast-growing and short-lived species, respond rapidly to climate warming 38 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposing shifts in distributions of chlorophyll concentration and composition in grassland under warming

Zhang

2021

Sci Rep

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Global warming has significantly altered the distribution and productivity of vegetation owing to shifts in plant functional traits. However, chlorophyll adaptations—good representative of plant production—in grasslands have not been investigated on a large scale, hindering ecological predictions of climate change. Three grassland transects with a natural temperature gradient were designed in the Tibetan, Mongolian, and Loess Plateau to describe the changes in chlorophyll under different warming scenarios for 475 species. In the three plateaus, variations and distributions of species chlorophyll concentration and composition were compared. The results showed that the means of chlorophyll concentration and composition (chlorophyll a/b) increased with the mean annual temperature. Still, their distributions shifted in opposite manners: chlorophyll concentration was distributed in a broader but more differential manner, while chlorophyll composition was distributed in a narrower but more uniform manner. Compared to chlorophyll concentration, chlorophyll composition was more conservative, with a slight shift in distribution. At the regional level, the chlorophyll concentration and composition depend on the limitations of the local climate or resources. The results implied that warming might drive shifts in grassland chlorophyll distribution mainly by alternations in species composition. Large-scale chlorophyll investigations will be useful for developing prediction techniques.

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“…Although temperature and precipitation patterns are changing simultaneously, we could only examine vegetation responses to these drivers independently. Previous studies suggest the combined effects of warming and precipitation changes could be additive (Xu et al., 2018) or interactive (Ronk et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2011). Future work should aim to understand their joint effects on ecosystems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This supports findings from a defoliation experiment in Spiti wherein plants compensated above-ground growth (ANPP) for defoliation more in the absence of irrigation (Bagchi & Ritchie, 2011 Although temperature and precipitation patterns are changing simultaneously, we could only examine vegetation responses to these drivers independently. Previous studies suggest the combined effects of warming and precipitation changes could be additive (Xu et al, 2018) or interactive (Ronk et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2011). Future work should aim to understand their joint effects on ecosystems.…”

Section: Climate and Grazing Interactively Influence Vegetation Covmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grazing and climate change have site‐dependent interactive effects on vegetation in Asian montane rangelands

Kohli

Mijiddorj

Suryawanshi

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Climate over Asian montane rangelands is changing faster than the global average, posing serious threats to the future of the region's livestock‐based economies and cultures. Effects of climate change on rangeland vegetation likely depend on grazing by herbivores but the potential responses of vegetation to such changes in climate and grazing regimes remain unclear. We examined vegetation responses to experimentally simulated climate change (warming, drought and increased rainfall) and grazing (clipping vegetation) between 2015 and 2018 at two mountain rangeland sites: Spiti valley, in the Indian Trans‐Himalaya and Tost, in the Gobi‐Altai Mountains in Mongolia. Clipping and climate change manipulations interactively reduced vegetation cover and biomass but did not affect species richness. Treatment effects and their interactions varied between sites. In ungrazed plots, vegetation cover and biomass declined sharply in response to warming (18%–35%) and drought (20%–50%) at the two sites, and, surprisingly also declined slightly in response to increased rainfall (20%) at Tost. While the effects of climate treatments were largely similar in the grazed and ungrazed plots in Tost, they were larger in the ungrazed plots in Spiti. The decline in vegetation cover was driven by a decline in the cover of both forbs and grasses. In combination, grazing and warming (Tost) or drought (Spiti) had sub‐additive effects, that is, the decrease in vegetation cover in response to grazing and warming/drought was less than the sum of their independent effects but greater than the effect of either manipulation alone. Of the two, warming had a greater effect than drought at the more arid site (Tost), whereas drought had a larger effect at the more mesic site (Spiti). Synthesis and applications. Our findings show that future changes in climate, including just over 1°C of warming, could undermine the sustainability of pastoral economies and the persistence of wildlife across Asian montane rangelands. Furthermore, grazing by herbivores will play an important role in mediating rangeland responses to climate change; thus, pasture management in concert with local pastoralists will be crucial in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on rangelands, pastoral livelihoods and wildlife populations.

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Greater effect of warming on community composition with increased precipitation and in moister landscape location

Abstract: This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

Cited by 5 publications

References 69 publications

Climate warming drives Himalayan alpine plant growth and recruitment dynamics

Climate warming drives Himalayan alpine plant growth and recruitment dynamics

Opposing shifts in distributions of chlorophyll concentration and composition in grassland under warming

Grazing and climate change have site‐dependent interactive effects on vegetation in Asian montane rangelands

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