Abstract
The changing availability of water resources and frequent extreme drought events in the context of global change will have a profound impact on desert vegetation, especially on herbaceous populations such as ephemerals. Erodium oxyrrhynchum is the dominant species in the Gurbantunggut Desert. It can germinate both in spring and autumn, which is important for herbaceous layer coverage and productivity. Therefore, we tracked and recorded the survival and reproduction of the E. oxyrrhynchum population under different precipitation treatments and established a population matrix model, monitored the allometry and leaf traits of the plants, and compared the performance of spring-germinating and autumn-germinating plants. Our results showed that: (1) The population dynamics were significantly affected by precipitation changes; (2) drought reduced the survival rate of the plants and accelerated the completion of their life history; (3) precipitation had a significant effect on seed production and growth rate, but not on plant height and allometry; (4) biomass, leaf area, specific leaf area, and 100-grain weight of E. oxyrrhynchum also responded to changes in precipitation; and (5) autumn-germinated plants had higher productivity, whereas spring-germinated plants exhibited higher reproductive efficiency, indicating that they had difference life history strategies. In conclusion, our results suggested that, although frequent or prolonged drought can significantly inhibit population growth, species with biseasonal germination are likely to be less affected.
Highlights
Water availability plays an important role in the distribution and composition of plant communities (Schwinning and Ehleringer, 2001; Fay et al, 2003)
We showed that precipitation had a significant effect on the population dynamics and population growth of E. oxyrrhynchum, and affected its survival, life history, and leaf traits
Precipitation changes had a significant effect on population growth (Figure 6), and a similar conclusion was reached in a previous study on the population dynamics of Bromus tectorum, namely, that increased precipitation in autumn and winter will render the species increasingly invasive (Prevey and Seastedt, 2015)
Summary
Water availability plays an important role in the distribution and composition of plant communities (Schwinning and Ehleringer, 2001; Fay et al, 2003). Groundwater and precipitation are the main water sources available to plants in desert ecosystems, and the survival and distribution of shallow-root herbs are strongly dependent on precipitation. Ephemeral Plant With Biseasonal Germination caused by climate change will almost certainly affect the availability of water in deserts (Donovan and Ehleringer, 1994; Dai, 2013). The fluctuation of water content in shallow soil due to precipitation changes, coupled with the accelerated depletion of soil water caused by high temperature and evaporation, renders shallow-rooted desert plants vulnerable to water stress (Padilla and Pugnaire, 2007)
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