Shifting seasonal patterns of water availability: ecosystem responses to an unappreciated dimension of climate change

Hajek, Olivia L.; Knapp, Alan K.

doi:10.1111/nph.17728

Cited by 55 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…responses within the same generation) include dispersal, migration and acclimatization, plants may primarily respond by acclimating to new conditions through changes of their allocation strategies, particularly by changing allocation strategies affecting resource uptake (Schmid 1992, Bardgett et al 2014, Weemstra et al 2016). For example, when water becomes more limiting, plants may allocate resources to the production of deeper roots in order to access soil moisture present in deeper soil layers (Balachowski and Volaire 2018) and even moderately stressful conditions may lead to profound ecological changes (Hajek and Knapp 2022). Such changes may be subjected to tradeoffs (Reich 2014), where higher allocation to a given plant structure may lead to lower allocation to another plant structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of intrinsic precipitation‐predictability on root traits, allocation strategies and the selective regimes acting on them

March‐Salas

Kleunen

Fitze

2021

Oikos

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate change affects means, variances and the intrinsic predictability of the climate. However, experimental tests of how changes in intrinsic climatic predictability affects plant traits, allocation strategies and the selective regime acting on them are scarce, as well as evidence for the importance of root functional traits to cope with climatic uncertainty. Here, we experimentally manipulated intrinsic daily and inter‐seasonal precipitation‐predictabilities and tested their effect on root traits, root allocation strategies, the selective regime acting on them, and transgenerational root responses, using a four‐year field experiment and Onobrychis viciifolia. More predictable precipitation led to lower root biomass and a lower overall plant performance, and to higher allocation to roots and higher within‐root allocation (i.e. allocation to root branching and maximum rooting depth relative to allocation to roots). Differences in intrinsic daily and inter‐seasonal predictability induced differences in the strength of selection acting on the studied traits, but did not affect the type of the selective regime, nor the transgenerational responses. The results indicate that higher predictability constrained a plant's performance, while plants were able to cope with lower predictability. Absence of transgenerational responses in root traits with respect to the predictability treatments, points to slow or no inter‐generational changes of root traits in unpredictable habitats. Thus, adjustments in root allocation strategies and changes therein might be key to deal with increasing climatic uncertainty.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of intrinsic precipitation‐predictability on root traits, allocation strategies and the selective regimes acting on them

March‐Salas

Kleunen

Fitze

2021

Oikos

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For spring phenology, temperature is generally agreed to be the largest contributing factor ( 21 , 26 , 28 , 32 ), and studies focus on interactions between chilling (accumulation of time spent in low temperatures) and forcing (accumulation of thermal time, growing degree days [GDD]) as temperature effects on budbreak, with reference to shifts in their interaction in a changing climate ( 10 , 15 , 21 , 33 ). Other factors have also been studied for their effects on budbreak, such as wood porosity ( 34 ), nutritional status ( 35 ), water availability ( 36 , 37 )—including humidity ( 38 )—and especially, photoperiod ( 39 , 40 ) [be that through more radiative warming ( 41 ) or true light-quality effects ( 42 – 44 )]. However, a missing key component of winter survival, the dynamic and changing cold hardiness of buds, has remained unexplored as the starting point for the estimation of the time to achieve any phenological stage.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Woody species do not differ in dormancy progression: Differences in time to budbreak due to forcing and cold hardiness

Kovaleski

2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Significance Better knowledge of dormancy (plant “hibernation”) is required to understand future adaptation of woody perennial plants facing warmer climates. Typical dormancy research uses time to budbreak to define the transition from a warm temperature nonresponsive to a responsive state (long vs. short time to budbreak). Based on this phenotyping method, species diverge in dormancy transition times during winter. Here, dynamics of bud cold hardiness (lowest survival temperature) for many species are used to show convergence in their response to winter chilling. Therefore, previous studies determining chilling requirement based on budbreak may describe adaptation to an environment but do not accurately describe physiological dormancy transitions. Further, cold hardiness dynamics can be used for field predictions of bud cold hardiness and budbreak.

show abstract

“…Electrolytes have thus far not constituted a subject of concerted study in food webs. With the Great Plains predicted to be warmer and wetter (Hajek & Knapp, 2022), the effect of increasing precipitation—beyond plant production and including the Na and K deposited with that rain—holds considerable interest.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrolytes on the prairie: How urine‐like additions of Na and K shape the dynamics of a grassland food web

Kaspari

Welti

2022

Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The electrolytes Na and K both function to maintain water balance and membrane potential. However, these elements work differently in plants—where K is the primary electrolyte—than in animals—where ATPases require a balanced supply of Na and K. Here, we use monthly factorial additions of Na and K to simulate bovine urine inputs and explore how these electrolytes ramify through a prairie food web. Against a seasonal trend of increasing grass biomass and decreasing water and elemental tissue concentrations, +K and +Na plots boosted water content and, when added together, plant biomass. Compared to control plots, +Na and +K plots increased element concentrations in above‐ground plant tissue early in summer and decreased them in September. Simultaneously, invertebrate abundance on Na and K additions were sequentially higher and lower than control plots from June to September and were most suppressed when grass was most nutrient rich. K was the more effective plant electrolyte, but Na frequently promoted similar changes in grass ionomes. The soluble/leachable ions of Na and K showed significant ability to shape plant growth, water content, and the 15‐element ionome, with consequences for higher trophic levels. Grasslands with high inputs of Na and K—via large mammal grazers or coastal aerosol deposition—likely enhance the ability of plants to adjust their above‐ground ionomes, with dramatic consequences for the distribution of invertebrate consumers.

show abstract

Shifting seasonal patterns of water availability: ecosystem responses to an unappreciated dimension of climate change

Cited by 55 publications

References 61 publications

Effects of intrinsic precipitation‐predictability on root traits, allocation strategies and the selective regimes acting on them

Effects of intrinsic precipitation‐predictability on root traits, allocation strategies and the selective regimes acting on them

Woody species do not differ in dormancy progression: Differences in time to budbreak due to forcing and cold hardiness

Electrolytes on the prairie: How urine‐like additions of Na and K shape the dynamics of a grassland food web

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About