Legacies of precipitation fluctuations on primary production: theory and data synthesis

Sala, Osvaldo E.; Gherardi, Laureano A.; Reichmann, Lara G.; Jobbágy, Estéban G.; Peters, Debra P. C.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2011.0347

Cited by 517 publications

(744 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

651

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…B 372: 20160142 recovery dynamics from climate extremes across the individual, population, community and ecosystem level in herbaceous and forest plant communities. As a consequence, our review was not intended to assess how ecological responses to climate extremes differ across spatial [5] or temporal scales [24,25], studies of which are increasingly relevant and likely warrant their own independent reviews. We acknowledge that forest and herbaceous plant dynamics-which may include species turnover, productivity and sensitivity to global change drivers-can vary considerably between these ecosystem types as these dynamics operate on differential timescales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating plant ecological responses to climate extremes from individual to ecosystem levels

Felton

Smith

2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate extremes will elicit responses from the individual to the ecosystem level. However, only recently have ecologists begun to synthetically assess responses to climate extremes across multiple levels of ecological organization. We review the literature to examine how plant responses vary and interact across levels of organization, focusing on how individual, population and community responses may inform ecosystem-level responses in herbaceous and forest plant communities. We report a high degree of variability at the individual level, and a consequential inconsistency in the translation of individual or population responses to directional changes in community- or ecosystem-level processes. The scaling of individual or population responses to community or ecosystem responses is often predicated upon the functional identity of the species in the community, in particular, the dominant species. Furthermore, the reported stability in plant community composition and functioning with respect to extremes is often driven by processes that operate at the community level, such as species niche partitioning and compensatory responses during or after the event. Future research efforts would benefit from assessing ecological responses across multiple levels of organization, as this will provide both a holistic and mechanistic understanding of ecosystem responses to increasing climatic variability. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events’.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating plant ecological responses to climate extremes from individual to ecosystem levels

Felton

Smith

2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The P-ANPP sensitivities obtained from spatial relationships are usually higher than those obtained by temporal relationships (Estiarte et al, 2016;Fatichi and Ivanov, 2014;Sala et al, 2012). Possible mechanisms behind the steeper spatial relationship may be (1) a 'vegetation constraint' reflecting the adaptation of plant communities over long time scales in such a way that grasslands make the best use of the water received from rainfall for growth, and (2) the spatial variation in structural and functional traits of ecosystems (soil properties, nutrient pools, plant and 15 microbial community composition) that constrain local P-ANPP sensitivities (Lauenroth and Sala, 1992;Smith et al, 2009;Wilcox et al, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 92%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We recommend that models simulate SWC in the same soil layer as experiments in following studies, also considering the local soil textures. This will help in figuring out the bias of modeled sensitivities to precipitation and to check explicitly the sensitivity of vegetation productivity to change in SWC; (2) Responses of ANPP and BNPP to altered precipitation are different, however, there are still only few control 13 experiments for BNPP to be used for evaluating the corresponding processes in models Wilcox et al, 2017);(3) Consideration of other processes such as responses of primary productivity to irrigation or drought manipulations, and time-lag effects of droughts (Hoover and Rogers, 2016;Hoover et al, 2014;Sala et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2014). To study such effects, modelers will need to simulate the control experiments corresponding to the real local manipulations applied by field scientists, e.g., considering vegetation composition, root profiles, nutrient cycling, phenology and carbon allocation as 5 close as possible to local conditions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4c), which suggested greater declines of ANPP in dry years than increases in wet years (Knapp and Smith, 2001). Knapp et al (2017b) proposed the following underlying mechanisms: (1) In dry years, the carry-over effects of soil moisture from previous years alleviate strong declines of ANPP (Sala et al, 2012), which is usually treated as a time-lag effect 15 (Wu et al, 2015). Additionally, rain use efficiency also increases with water scarcity, meaning that less water is lost through runoff (Gutschick and BassiriRad, 2003;Huxman et al, 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Asymmetric Responses of Primary Productivity to Altered Precipitation Simulated by Ecosystem Models across Three Longterm Grassland Sites

Wu¹,

Ciais²,

Viovy³

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Changes in precipitation variability are known to influence grassland growth. Field measurements of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in temperate grasslands suggest that both positive and negative asymmetric responses to changes in precipitation may occur. Under normally variable precipitation regimes, wet years typically result in ANPP gains being larger 5 than ANPP declines in dry years (positive asymmetry), whereas increases in ANPP are lower in magnitude in extreme wet years compared to reductions during extreme drought (negative asymmetry). Whether ecosystem models that couple carbonwater system in grasslands are capable of simulating these non-symmetrical ANPP responses is an unresolved question. In this study, we evaluated the simulated responses of temperate grassland primary productivity to scenarios of altered precipitation with fourteen ecosystem models at three sites, Shortgrass Steppe (SGS), Konza Prairie (KNZ) and Stubai Valley meadow 10 (STU), spanning a rainfall gradient from dry to moist. We found that: (1) Gross primary productivity (GPP), NPP, ANPP and belowground NPP (BNPP) showed concave-down nonlinear response curves to altered precipitation in all the models, but with different curvatures and mean values. (2) The slopes of spatial relationships (across sites) between modeled primary productivity and precipitation were steeper than the temporal slopes obtained from inter-annual variations, consistent with empirical data. (3) The asymmetry of the responses of modeled primary productivity under normal inter-annual precipitation 15 variability differed among models, and the median of the model-ensemble suggested a negative asymmetry across the three sites, in contrast to empirical studies. (4) The median sensitivity of modeled productivity to rainfall consistently suggested greater negative impacts with reduced precipitation than positive effects with increased precipitation under extreme conditions. This study indicates that most models overestimate the extent of negative drought effects and/or underestimate the impacts of increased precipitation on primary productivity under normal climate conditions, highlighting the need for improving eco- 20hydrological processes in models. IntroductionPrecipitation is a key climatic determinant of ecosystem productivity, especially in grasslands which limits productivity over the majority of the globe (Lambers et al., 2008;Sala et al., 1988;Hsu et al., 2012;Beer et al., 2010). Climate models project substantial changes in amounts and frequencies of precipitation regimes worldwide, and this is supported by observational 25 data (Karl and Trenberth, 2003; Donat et al., 2016;Fischer and Knutti, 2016). Potential for increasing occurrence and severity of droughts and increased heavy rainfall events related to global warming will likely affect grassland growth Gherardi and Sala, 2015;Lau et al., 2013;Reichstein et al., 2013). As a consequence, better understanding of the responses of grassland productivity to altered precipitation is needed ...

show abstract

The carbon balance pivot point of southwestern U.S. semiarid ecosystems: Insights from the 21st century drought

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Global-scale studies indicate that semiarid regions strongly regulate the terrestrial carbon sink.However, we lack understanding of how climatic shifts, such as decadal drought, impact carbon sequestration across the wide range of structural diversity in semiarid ecosystems. Therefore, we used eddy covariance measurements to quantify how net ecosystem production of carbon dioxide (NEP) differed with relative grass and woody plant abundance over the last decade of drought in four Southwest U.S. ecosystems. We identified a precipitation "pivot point" in the carbon balance for each ecosystem where annual NEP switched from negative to positive. Ecosystems with grass had pivot points closer to the drought period precipitation than the predrought average, making them more likely to be carbon sinks (and a grass-free shrubland, a carbon source) during the current drought. One reason for this is that the grassland located closest to the shrubland supported higher leaf area and photosynthesis at the same water availability. Higher leaf area was associated with a greater proportion of evapotranspiration being transpiration (T/ET), and therefore with higher ecosystem water use efficiency (gross ecosystem photosynthesis/ET). Our findings strongly show that water availability is a primary driver of both gross and net semiarid productivity and illustrate that structural differences may contribute to the speed at which ecosystem carbon cycling adjusts to climatic shifts.For much of the last two decades, drought conditions have prevailed over the semiarid southwestern United States [Dai, 2013]. This "21st century drought" has varied in severity and location across these years resulting in a myriad of regional challenges for natural and human-dominated systems, such as water shortages, forest mortality, and wildfires [e.g., Barnett and Pierce, 2008;Breshears et al., 2005;McAuliffe and Hamerlynck, 2010;Westerling and Bryant, 2008]. Climate models have suggested the characteristics of this drought, including the prevalence of reduced winter precipitation and higher air temperatures, may represent a "new normal" [McAfee and Russell, 2008] and that this region will experience even more severe and protracted drought in the future [Cayan et al., 2010]. We do not know how the current drought, let alone predicted increased desiccation, has altered carbon exchange in this region [Archer and Predick, 2008; van der Molen et al., 2011].

show abstract

Legacies of precipitation fluctuations on primary production: theory and data synthesis

Cited by 517 publications

References 40 publications

Integrating plant ecological responses to climate extremes from individual to ecosystem levels

Integrating plant ecological responses to climate extremes from individual to ecosystem levels

Asymmetric Responses of Primary Productivity to Altered Precipitation Simulated by Ecosystem Models across Three Longterm Grassland Sites

The carbon balance pivot point of southwestern U.S. semiarid ecosystems: Insights from the 21st century drought

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About