Abstract
AbstractGlobal warming and changes in precipitation are altering the phenology of plants that significantly impact the functioning and services of ecosystems. Although a number of studies have addressed responses of plant phenology to warming and altered precipitation individually, their interactions can alter plant phenology differently than either does independently. To explore how the interactions between global change drivers alter alpine ecosystems, we conducted a factorial experiment manipulating warming (ambient and +2°C) and altered precipitation (50% decrease, control, and 50% increase) simultaneously in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau. Over two years, we monitored plant phenological events, leaf‐out day and first flowering day, for 11 common plant species that account for 74.4% of the total above biomass. Surprisingly, there was no interaction between warming and changes in precipitation on community plant phenology, but warming advanced leaf‐out and first flowering day by 7.10 and 9.79 d, respectively. Unlike the community response, plant functional groups had a variety of direct and interactive responses to the experimental climate drivers. While the phenology of legumes was most influenced by temperature, temperature and precipitation interacted to alter the phenology of grasses and forbs. To explore how plant phenological sensitivity on the Tibetan Plateau is compared with other meadow ecosystems, we combined our dataset with a global plant phenology dataset. Interestingly, the phenological sensitivity of leaf‐out day and first flowering day on the Tibetan Plateau is 7.3 and 37.8 times greater than global phenological sensitivity, respectively. This result highlights that a meta‐analysis of global phenological sensitivity may significantly underestimate change in some regions—even regions as large as the Tibetan Plateau. Together, our results suggest that the Tibetan Plateau may experience rapid change as temperatures warm and that these changes will likely be more rapid than in other regions of the world. Further, our study highlights that if we are to make accurate predictions of how plant phenology may change with warming, we need to understand the specific environmental cues that drive phenological responses across different areas.
Highlights
Global changes, such as accumulating atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), are directly associated with elevated global temperatures and altered precipitation regimes (Stocker et al 2013)
With the addition of data from our own study, we found that phenological sensitivity varied extensively among 25 experimental sites, but the Tibetan Plateau was the most sensitive site (Appendix S1: Fig. S3a)
Remote sensing studies on the Tibetan Plateau find that phenology is more sensitive to temperature in wetter areas and more sensitive to precipitation in drier areas (Shen et al 2015a)
Summary
Global changes, such as accumulating atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), are directly associated with elevated global temperatures and altered precipitation regimes (Stocker et al 2013). Because temperature and precipitation are the main drivers of plant phenology, warming and altered precipitation regimes shift important stages in plant life history, such as leaf-out and flowering time (Arft et al 1999, Abu-Asab et al 2001, Fitter and Fitter 2002, Parmesan and Yohe 2003, Pen~uelas et al 2004, Menzel et al 2006, Cleland et al 2007). These climate changes on the Tibetan Plateau will likely alter plant phenology
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