Species asynchrony maintains community stability under different warming conditions

Abstract

Abstract Asymmetric seasonal warming, characterized by more pronounced temperature increases in winter than in summer, has become a critical feature of global warming, especially in cold and high-altitude regions. Previous studies have primarily focused on year-round warming, while comparatively less attention was paid to winter warming. However, a significant knowledge gap exists regarding the impacts of winter warming on ecosystem functions. To address this, we conducted an 8-year manipulated warming experiment in an alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau, employing three treatments: no warming, year-round warming and winter warming. We found that neither year-round warming nor winter warming significantly alters species richness at the community level. Notably, community biomass stability was maintained via species asynchrony. However, warming exerted significant effects on the plant abundance groups (dominant, common and rare species). Specifically, winter warming enhanced the stability of dominant species by increasing species asynchrony of dominant species, as the compensatory dynamics occurred between the grass and forbs. In contrast, year-round warming reduced the stability of common species, correlated with an increase in species richness and a decline in asynchrony among common species. Thus, our study underscores the capacity of alpine grassland to maintain community biomass stability via asynchrony dynamics of species under different warming conditions, although the stability of different abundance groups would be changed. Importantly, our results provide valuable insights for understanding the alpine grassland ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau.