Cargando…

Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands

Mitigating and adapting to climate change requires an understanding of the magnitude and nature by which climate change will influence the diversity of plants across the world’s ecosystems. Experiments can causally link precipitation change to plant diversity change, however, these experiments vary...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Korell, Lotte, Auge, Harald, Chase, Jonathan M., Harpole, W. Stanley, Knight, Tiffany M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8093425/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33941779
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22766-0
_version_ 1783687806237802496
author Korell, Lotte
Auge, Harald
Chase, Jonathan M.
Harpole, W. Stanley
Knight, Tiffany M.
author_facet Korell, Lotte
Auge, Harald
Chase, Jonathan M.
Harpole, W. Stanley
Knight, Tiffany M.
author_sort Korell, Lotte
collection PubMed
description Mitigating and adapting to climate change requires an understanding of the magnitude and nature by which climate change will influence the diversity of plants across the world’s ecosystems. Experiments can causally link precipitation change to plant diversity change, however, these experiments vary in their methods and in the diversity metrics reported, making synthesis elusive. Here, we explicitly account for a number of potentially confounding variables, including spatial grain, treatment magnitude and direction and background climatic conditions, to synthesize data across 72 precipitation manipulation experiments. We find that the effects of treatments with higher magnitude of precipitation manipulation on plant diversity are strongest at the smallest spatial scale, and in drier environments. Our synthesis emphasizes that quantifying differential responses of ecosystems requires explicit consideration of spatial grain and the magnitude of experimental manipulation. Given that diversity provides essential ecosystem services, especially in dry and semi-dry areas, our finding that these dry ecosystems are particular sensitive to projected changes in precipitation has important implications for their conservation and management.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8093425
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-80934252021-05-11 Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands Korell, Lotte Auge, Harald Chase, Jonathan M. Harpole, W. Stanley Knight, Tiffany M. Nat Commun Article Mitigating and adapting to climate change requires an understanding of the magnitude and nature by which climate change will influence the diversity of plants across the world’s ecosystems. Experiments can causally link precipitation change to plant diversity change, however, these experiments vary in their methods and in the diversity metrics reported, making synthesis elusive. Here, we explicitly account for a number of potentially confounding variables, including spatial grain, treatment magnitude and direction and background climatic conditions, to synthesize data across 72 precipitation manipulation experiments. We find that the effects of treatments with higher magnitude of precipitation manipulation on plant diversity are strongest at the smallest spatial scale, and in drier environments. Our synthesis emphasizes that quantifying differential responses of ecosystems requires explicit consideration of spatial grain and the magnitude of experimental manipulation. Given that diversity provides essential ecosystem services, especially in dry and semi-dry areas, our finding that these dry ecosystems are particular sensitive to projected changes in precipitation has important implications for their conservation and management. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8093425/ /pubmed/33941779 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22766-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Korell, Lotte
Auge, Harald
Chase, Jonathan M.
Harpole, W. Stanley
Knight, Tiffany M.
Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
title Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
title_full Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
title_fullStr Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
title_full_unstemmed Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
title_short Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
title_sort responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8093425/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33941779
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22766-0
work_keys_str_mv AT korelllotte responsesofplantdiversitytoprecipitationchangearestrongestatlocalspatialscalesandindrylands
AT augeharald responsesofplantdiversitytoprecipitationchangearestrongestatlocalspatialscalesandindrylands
AT chasejonathanm responsesofplantdiversitytoprecipitationchangearestrongestatlocalspatialscalesandindrylands
AT harpolewstanley responsesofplantdiversitytoprecipitationchangearestrongestatlocalspatialscalesandindrylands
AT knighttiffanym responsesofplantdiversitytoprecipitationchangearestrongestatlocalspatialscalesandindrylands