Responses of Carbon Isotope Composition of Common C 3 and C 4 Plants to Climatic Factors in Temperate Grasslands

Yongchun Zhou, Haibo Li, Xinyang Xu and Yinghua Li
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Yongchun Zhou: School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Haibo Li: School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Xinyang Xu: School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Yinghua Li: School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-12

Abstract: Investigating relationships between climatic factors and plant δ 13 C of both C 3 and C 4 plants simultaneously is critical for accurately predicting the effects of climate change on plant ecophysiology and ecosystem functioning and reconstructing past vegetation and climate conditions. We selected common C 3 and C 4 plants in temperate grasslands in Inner Mongolia, China, i.e., Stipa spp., Carex spp., Leymus chinensis and Cleistogenes spp., and investigated the relationships between climatic factors and plant δ 13 C of each genus/species. The results showed that precipitation, especially growing season precipitation (GSP), was the dominant factor affecting plant δ 13 C in this region. For C 3 plants, there were significantly negative relationships between precipitation and plant δ 13 C. For C 4 plants, plant δ 13 C of Cleistogenes spp. firstly increased, then decreased with precipitation at a breakpoint GSP 204.84 mm. Our findings emphasize that C 4 plant δ 13 C is sensitive to precipitation, but responses are species-specific and environment-specific, and suggest that C 4 plant δ 13 C can be used as a proxy for water use efficiency (WUE), but care should be taken in evaluating WUE. Moreover, our findings provide basic information for accurately predicting the effects of climate change on ecosystem structure and function and reconstructing past vegetation and climate conditions from bulk materials in arid and semiarid regions.

Keywords: Stipa spp.; Carex spp.; Leymus chinensis; Cleistogenes spp.; temperature; precipitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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