Species-rich semi-natural grasslands have a higher resistance but a lower resilience than intensively managed agricultural grasslands in response to climate anomalies

The stable delivery of ecosystem services provided by grasslands is strongly dependent on the stability of grassland ecosystem functions such as biomass production. Biomass production is in turn strongly affected by the frequency and intensity of climate extremes. The aim of this study is to evaluate to what extent species-poor intensively managed agricultural grasslands can maintain their biomass productivity under climate anomalies, as compared to species-rich, semi-natural grasslands. Our hypothesis is that species richness stabilizes biomass production over time. Biomass production stability was assessed in response to drought and temperature anomalies using 14 years of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), temperature and drought index time series. More specifically, vegetation resistance (i.e. the ability to withstand the climate anomaly) and resilience (i.e. the recovery rate) were derived using an auto-regressive model with external input variables (ARx). The stability metrics for both grasslands were subsequently compared. We found that semi-natural grasslands exhibited a higher resistance but lower resilience than agricultural grasslands in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the difference in stability between semi-natural and agricultural grasslands was dependent on the physical geography: the most significant differences in resistance were observed in coastal dunes and riverine areas, whereas the differences in resilience were the most significant in coastal dunes and fens. Synthesis and applications. We conclude that semi-natural grasslands show a higher resistance to drought and temperature anomalies compared to agricultural grasslands. These results underline the need to reassess the ways agricultural practices are performed. More specifically, increasing the plant species richness of agricultural grasslands and lowering their mowing and grazing frequency may contribute to buffer their biomass production stability against climate extremes.

[1]  B. Wylie,et al.  Mapping grassland productivity with 250-m eMODIS NDVI and SSURGO database over the Greater Platte River Basin, USA , 2013 .

[2]  L. Duchateau,et al.  Soil phosphorus constrains biodiversity across European grasslands , 2014, Global change biology.

[3]  M. Pärtel,et al.  Biodiversity in temperate European grasslands: origin and conservation. , 2005 .

[4]  D. Tilman,et al.  Productivity and sustainability influenced by biodiversity in grassland ecosystems , 1996, Nature.

[5]  P. Reich,et al.  Diversity and Productivity in a Long-Term Grassland Experiment , 2001, Science.

[6]  Laurent Tits,et al.  A model quantifying global vegetation resistance and resilience to short‐term climate anomalies and their relationship with vegetation cover , 2015 .

[7]  Wim A. Ozinga,et al.  Use of the ecological information system SynBioSys for the analysis of large datasets , 2007 .

[8]  C. Rennó,et al.  Vertical distance from drainage drives floristic composition changes in an Amazonian rainforest , 2014 .

[9]  S. Vicente‐Serrano,et al.  A Multiscalar Drought Index Sensitive to Global Warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index , 2009 .

[10]  Ivana Logar,et al.  Methods to Assess Costs of Drought Damages and Policies for Drought Mitigation and Adaptation: Review and Recommendations , 2013, Water Resources Management.

[11]  Rob J Hyndman,et al.  Phenological change detection while accounting for abrupt and gradual trends in satellite image time series , 2010 .

[12]  Rasmus Fensholt,et al.  Drought footprint on European ecosystems between 1999 and 2010 assessed by remotely sensed vegetation phenology and productivity , 2014, Global change biology.

[13]  R. Ceulemans,et al.  How do climate warming and plant species richness affect water use in experimental grasslands? , 2006, Plant and Soil.

[14]  Simon C. Potter,et al.  A Genome-Wide Association Search for Type 2 Diabetes Genes in African Americans , 2012, PLoS ONE.

[15]  C. Leuschner,et al.  Fifty years of change in Central European grassland vegetation: Large losses in species richness and animal-pollinated plants , 2012 .

[16]  B. McConkey,et al.  Monitoring and modeling spatial and temporal patterns of grassland dynamics using time-series MODIS NDVI with climate and stocking data , 2013 .

[17]  Edwin W. Pak,et al.  An extended AVHRR 8‐km NDVI dataset compatible with MODIS and SPOT vegetation NDVI data , 2005 .

[18]  C. W. Thornthwaite.  An approach toward a rational classification of climate. , 1948 .

[19]  D. Roy,et al.  An overview of MODIS Land data processing and product status , 2002 .

[20]  D. Tilman,et al.  Plant diversity and ecosystem productivity: theoretical considerations. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[21]  Jan Verbesselt,et al.  Assessing intra-annual vegetation regrowth after fire using the pixel based regeneration index , 2011 .

[22]  A. Weigelt,et al.  Grassland Resistance and Resilience after Drought Depends on Management Intensity and Species Richness , 2012, PloS one.

[23]  Michel Loreau,et al.  Partitioning selection and complementarity in biodiversity experiments , 2001, Nature.

[24]  F. Berendse,et al.  Diversity enhances community recovery, but not resistance, after drought , 2010 .

[25]  Rob J Hyndman,et al.  Detecting trend and seasonal changes in satellite image time series , 2010 .

[26]  Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano,et al.  A Multiscalar Global Drought Dataset: The SPEIbase: A New Gridded Product for the Analysis of Drought Variability and Impacts , 2010 .

[27]  O. Honnay,et al.  Plant species loss from European semi‐natural grasslands following nutrient enrichment – is it nitrogen or is it phosphorus? , 2013 .

[28]  S. Verón,et al.  Desertification alters the response of vegetation to changes in precipitation. , 2010 .

[29]  Laurent Tits,et al.  Resilience and the reliability of spectral entropy to assess ecosystem stability , 2018, Global change biology.

[30]  Ben Somers,et al.  How to measure ecosystem stability? An evaluation of the reliability of stability metrics based on remote sensing time series across the major global ecosystems , 2014, Global change biology.

[31]  N. Pettorelli,et al.  Satellite remote sensing for applied ecologists: opportunities and challenges , 2014 .

[32]  Jan Verbesselt,et al.  A pixel based regeneration index using time series similarity and spatial context , 2010 .

[33]  N. Pettorelli,et al.  Using the satellite-derived NDVI to assess ecological responses to environmental change. , 2005, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[34]  P. Harrison,et al.  Linkages between biodiversity attributes and ecosystem services: A systematic review , 2014 .

[35]  D. Tilman.  Biodiversity: Population Versus Ecosystem Stability , 1995 .

[36]  S. Running,et al.  Global products of vegetation leaf area and fraction absorbed PAR from year one of MODIS data , 2002 .

[37]  G. Daily,et al.  Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity , 2012, Nature.

[38]  Sun Xiaomin,et al.  Partitioning of evapotranspiration and its controls in four grassland ecosystems: Application of a two-source model , 2009 .

[39]  J. Downing,et al.  Biodiversity and stability in grasslands , 1996, Nature.

[40]  Tiina Häyhä,et al.  Ecosystem services assessment: A review under an ecological-economic and systems perspective , 2014 .