Root system plays an important role in responses of plant to drought in the steppe of China

Abstract

AbstractIn the temperate grasslands of northern China, there exists a large range of soil texture. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the effect of climate water deficit on plant traits and have paid little attention to the effect of soil water deficit because grasses tend to use rainfall water directly. We measured eight drought‐related plant traits of 12 widely distributed perennial species in the temperate grassland in northern China and examined drought‐related plant traits under different aridity index ([ET0 − P]/ET0) and soil sand/clay ratio. The 12 species were categorized into three functional groups: fibrous‐rooted C4 species, fibrous‐rooted C3 species, and tap‐rooted C3 species. Our results showed that increasing climate drought had influence on all selected functional groups, and the influence on aboveground biomass and height was especially large on fibrous‐rooted C3 species. Coarse soil led to increased root length of fibrous‐rooted C3 and tap‐rooted C3 species. Our results imply that root system can be important to plant responses under drought, and soil texture can have influence on plant, though most of the traits show resistance to coarser soil.