Abstract
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.
Highlights
Global warming has significantly altered the distribution and productivity of vegetation owing to shifts in plant functional traits
Nested-analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that taxonomy contributed to the majority of Chl concentration coefficients of variation (CV) rather than regions or sites
The CV represents the discrete degree of trait values, that is, the size of the trait space (Fig. 6b; Supplementary Note S1); S and K are generally used to describe the shape of trait distribution (Fig. 6c,d, Supplementary Note S1)
Summary
Global warming has significantly altered the distribution and productivity of vegetation owing to shifts in plant functional traits. Chlorophyll (Chl), which harvests, transfers, and converts sunlight, is the initiator of photosynthesis and is acknowledged as the best indicator of productivity[4] The fluorescence of these tiny pigment molecules allows their large-scale detection and is, a promising tool for estimating productivity and undertaking ecological p redictions[5]. Along high to low light gradients, Chl b increases, while Chl a/b decreases to enhance the utilisation of diffused radiation[9,14] These conclusions have been drawn based on studies of forests or woody plants in areas with large light gradients between the canopy and Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China. Chl concentration and composition adaptation to these environmental factors has not been revealed in grasslands on a large scale
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