Daytime warming lowers community temporal stability by reducing the abundance of dominant, stable species.
Daytime warming and nighttime warming have the potential to influence plant community structure and ecosystem functions. However, their impacts on ecological stability remain largely unexplored. We conducted an eight-year field experiment to compare the effects of daytime and nighttime warming on the temporal stability of a temperate steppe in northern China. Our results showed that the cover and stability of dominant species, stability of subordinate species, and compensatory dynamics among species strongly influenced community-level stability. However, daytime, but not nighttime, warming significantly reduced community temporal stability mainly through the reduction in the abundance of dominant, stable species. These findings demonstrate the differential effects of daytime and nighttime warming on community stability and emphasize the importance of understanding the changes of dominant species for accurately predicting community dynamics under climate warming.
State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, China.|School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
Zhongling
Z
Yang
State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, China.
Qian
Q
Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, China.
Fanglong
F
Su
Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, 810008, China.
Chunhui
C
Zhang
School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
Zhichao
Z
Pu
Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
Jianyang
J
Xia
State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, China.
Shiqiang
S
Wan
School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
Lin
L
Jiang
D002681:China; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D010944:Plants; D013997:Time Factors
community cover; dominant species; grassland; species richness; subordinate species; synchrony