Abstract
Annuals are an important component part of plant communities in arid and semiarid grassland ecosystems. Although it is well known that precipitation has a significant impact on productivity and species richness of community or perennials, nevertheless, due to lack of measurements, especially long-term experiment data, there is little information on how quantity and patterns of precipitation affect similar attributes of annuals. This study addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing how quantity and temporal patterns of precipitation affect aboveground biomass, interannual variation aboveground biomass, relative aboveground biomass, and species richness of annuals using a 29-year dataset from a dry steppe site at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station. Results showed that aboveground biomass and relative aboveground biomass of annuals increased with increasing precipitation. The coefficient of variation in aboveground biomass of annuals decreased significantly with increasing annual and growing-season precipitation. Species richness of annuals increased significantly with increasing annual precipitation and growing-season precipitation. Overall, this study highlights the importance of precipitation for aboveground biomass and species richness of annuals.
Highlights
Plant productivity and species diversity of grassland communities substantially related to global climate change are key elements to understanding the community dynamics, community structure and stability, and functioning of steppe ecosystems [1,2,3,4,5]
We addressed the following three research questions: 1) How does annual precipitation variation affect aboveground biomass and species richness of annuals? 2) How does aboveground biomass and species richness of annuals respond to seasonal precipitation variation? 3) Does there exist a compensatory effect of annuals on perennials in grassland community?
We evaluated the impacts of precipitation patterns on aboveground biomass, interannual variation of aboveground biomass, relative aboveground biomass and species richness of annuals across 29 years
Summary
Plant productivity and species diversity of grassland communities substantially related to global climate change are key elements to understanding the community dynamics, community structure and stability, and functioning of steppe ecosystems [1,2,3,4,5]. Research over the last decade has focused on the responses of primary production and species richness of perennial plants [6,7], or communities [8], to climate factors such as precipitation and temperature during this period [9,10]. Annual plants are often pioneer species of grassland communities due to effective adaptation strategies. They are present in most vegetation communities on the earth and are an important contributor to the productivity and structure of steppe ecosystems, PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0125300. They are present in most vegetation communities on the earth and are an important contributor to the productivity and structure of steppe ecosystems, PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0125300 April 23, 2015
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