Dual mechanisms regulate ecosystem stability under decade-long warming and hay harvest.
Past global change studies have identified changes in species diversity as a major mechanism regulating temporal stability of production, measured as the ratio of the mean to the standard deviation of community biomass. However, the dominant plant functional group can also strongly determine the temporal stability. Here, in a grassland ecosystem subject to 15 years of experimental warming and hay harvest, we reveal that warming increases while hay harvest decreases temporal stability. This corresponds with the biomass of the dominant C4 functional group being higher under warming and lower under hay harvest. As a secondary mechanism, biodiversity also explains part of the variation in temporal stability of production. Structural equation modelling further shows that warming and hay harvest regulate temporal stability through influencing both temporal mean and variation of production. Our findings demonstrate the joint roles that dominant plant functional group and biodiversity play in regulating the temporal stability of an ecosystem under global change.
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.
Zheng
Z
Shi
Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Biology and The Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037 China.
Xia
X
Xu
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.|Oklahoma Biological Survey, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.
Lara
L
Souza
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.
Kevin
K
Wilcox
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.
Lifen
L
Jiang
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.
Junyi
J
Liang
Tiantong National Forest Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.|Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
Jianyang
J
Xia
Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación, Departamento de Biología, Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, C/Tulipán s/n, Móstoles 28933, Spain.
Pablo
P
García-Palacios
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.|Center for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 China.
Yiqi
Y
Luo
D000383:Agriculture; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D017753:Ecosystem; D057232:Global Warming; D016014:Linear Models; D006109:Poaceae / Q000254:growth & development*; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors
D012987:Soil