Climate warming reduces the temporal stability of plant community biomass production

Zhiyuan Ma, Huiying Liu, Zhaorong Mi, Zhenhua Zhang, Yonghui Wang, Wei Xu, Lin Jiang () and Jin-Sheng He ()
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Zhiyuan Ma: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University
Huiying Liu: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University
Zhaorong Mi: Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhenhua Zhang: Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yonghui Wang: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University
Wei Xu: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University
Lin Jiang: School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
Jin-Sheng He: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Anthropogenic climate change has emerged as a critical environmental problem, prompting frequent investigations into its consequences for various ecological systems. Few studies, however, have explored the effect of climate change on ecological stability and the underlying mechanisms. We conduct a field experiment to assess the influence of warming and altered precipitation on the temporal stability of plant community biomass in an alpine grassland located on the Tibetan Plateau. We find that whereas precipitation alteration does not influence biomass temporal stability, warming lowers stability through reducing the degree of species asynchrony. Importantly, biomass temporal stability is not influenced by plant species diversity, but is largely determined by the temporal stability of dominant species and asynchronous population dynamics among the coexisting species. Our findings suggest that ongoing and future climate change may alter stability properties of ecological communities, potentially hindering their ability to provide ecosystem services for humanity.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15378

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