title: Impact of precipitation patterns on biomass and species richness of annuals in a dry steppe.
abstract: Annuals are an important component part of plant communities in arid and semiarid grassland ecosystems. Although it is well known that precipitation has a significant impact on productivity and species richness of community or perennials, nevertheless, due to lack of measurements, especially long-term experiment data, there is little information on how quantity and patterns of precipitation affect similar attributes of annuals. This study addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing how quantity and temporal patterns of precipitation affect aboveground biomass, interannual variation aboveground biomass, relative aboveground biomass, and species richness of annuals using a 29-year dataset from a dry steppe site at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station. Results showed that aboveground biomass and relative aboveground biomass of annuals increased with increasing precipitation. The coefficient of variation in aboveground biomass of annuals decreased significantly with increasing annual and growing-season precipitation. Species richness of annuals increased significantly with increasing annual precipitation and growing-season precipitation. Overall, this study highlights the importance of precipitation for aboveground biomass and species richness of annuals.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Vegetation Restoration, State Environmental Protection, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.
authors.forename: Cunzhu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.
authors.forename: Zhiyong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.
authors.forename: Zhongling
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China; Meteorological Research Institute of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot, China.
authors.forename: Bailing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Vegetation Restoration, State Environmental Protection, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
authors.forename: Chunguang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Vegetation Restoration, State Environmental Protection, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
authors.forename: Lianxi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sheng
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D018533:Biomass; D003889:Desert Climate; D065948:Grassland; D008986:Mongolia; D006109:Poaceae / Q000145:classification* / Q000254:growth & development*; D011891:Rain; D013045:Species Specificity