title: Plant species richness and shrub cover attenuate drought effects on ecosystem functioning across Patagonian rangelands.
abstract: Drought is an increasingly common phenomenon in drylands as a consequence of climate change. We used 311 sites across a broad range of environmental conditions in Patagonian rangelands to evaluate how drought severity and temperature (abiotic factors) and vegetation structure (biotic factors) modulate the impact of a drought event on the annual integral of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI-I), our surrogate of ecosystem functioning. We found that NDVI-I decreases were larger with both increasing drought severity and temperature. Plant species richness (SR) and shrub cover (SC) attenuated the effects of drought on NDVI-I. Grass cover did not affect the impacts of drought on NDVI-I. Our results suggest that warming and species loss, two important imprints of global environmental change, could increase the vulnerability of Patagonian ecosystems to drought. Therefore, maintaining SR through appropriate grazing management can attenuate the adverse effects of climate change on ecosystem functioning.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) Bariloche, Bariloche 8400, Argentina gaitan.juan@inta.gob.ar.
authors.forename: Juan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Gaitán
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) Bariloche, Bariloche 8400, Argentina.
authors.forename: Donaldo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bran
authors.affiliation: INTA Santa Cruz, Río Gallegos 9400, Argentina.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Oliva
authors.affiliation: Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación, Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles 28933, Spain.
authors.forename: Fernando T
authors.initials: FT
authors.lastname: Maestre
authors.affiliation: IFEVA, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Martín R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Aguiar
authors.affiliation: Grupo de Estudios Ambientales, IMASL-CONICET, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, San Luis, Argentina.
authors.forename: Esteban
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jobbágy
authors.affiliation: INTA Chubut, Trelew 9100, Argentina.
authors.forename: Gustavo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Buono
authors.affiliation: INTA Santa Cruz, Río Gallegos 9400, Argentina.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ferrante
authors.affiliation: INTA Chubut, Trelew 9100, Argentina.
authors.forename: Viviana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nakamatsu
authors.affiliation: INTA Esquel, Esquel 9200, Argentina.
authors.forename: Georgina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ciari
authors.affiliation: INTA Chubut, Trelew 9100, Argentina.
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Salomone
authors.affiliation: INTA Chubut, Trelew 9100, Argentina.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Massara
mesh_terms: D001118:Argentina; D044822:Biodiversity; D002980:Climate; D055864:Droughts; D017753:Ecosystem; D010944:Plants; D006109:Poaceae; D013696:Temperature
keywords: drylands; ecosystem services; grass cover