Resistance and resilience of a grassland ecosystem to climate extremes

Climate change forecasts of more frequent climate extremes suggest that such events will become increasingly important drivers of future ecosystem dynamics and function. Because the rarity and unpredictability of naturally occurring climate extremes limits assessment of their ecological impacts, we experimentally imposed extreme drought and a mid-summer heat wave over two years in a central U.S. grassland. While the ecosystem was resistant to heat waves, it was not resistant to extreme drought, which reduced aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) below the lowest level measured in this grassland in almost 30 years. This extreme reduction in ecosystem function was a consequence of reduced productivity of both C4 grasses and C3 forbs. However, the dominant forb was negatively impacted by the drought more than the dominant grass, and this led to a reordering of species abundances within the plant community. Although this change in community composition persisted post-drought, ANPP recovered completely t...

[1]  Debra P C Peters,et al.  Precipitation legacies in desert grassland primary production occur through previous-year tiller density. , 2013, Ecology.

[2]  Anja Rammig,et al.  A plant's perspective of extremes: terrestrial plant responses to changing climatic variability , 2013, Global change biology.

[3]  D. Stahle,et al.  Historical perspective on the dust bowl drought in the central United States , 2013, Climatic Change.

[4]  O. Sala,et al.  Legacies of precipitation fluctuations on primary production: theory and data synthesis , 2012, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[5]  R. Lal,et al.  Adapting agriculture to drought and extreme events , 2012, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.

[6]  Maja K. Sundqvist,et al.  Crossing the threshold: the power of multi-level experiments in identifying global change responses. , 2012, The New phytologist.

[7]  J. Ott,et al.  Contrasting bud bank dynamics of two co-occurring grasses in tallgrass prairie: implications for grassland dynamics , 2012, Plant Ecology.

[8]  I. Janssens,et al.  Summer heat and drought extremes trigger unexpected changes in productivity of a temperate annual/biannual plant community , 2012 .

[9]  D. Schimel,et al.  Carry over from previous year environmental conditions alters dominance hierarchy in a prairie plant community , 2012 .

[10]  J. Iriondo,et al.  Extreme climatic events and vegetation: the role of stabilizing processes , 2012 .

[11]  Nathaniel A. Brunsell,et al.  Timing of climate variability and grassland productivity , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[12]  T. Stocker,et al.  Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2012 .

[13]  Kerry M. Byrne,et al.  Defining the limit to resistance in a drought‐tolerant grassland: long‐term severe drought significantly reduces the dominant species and increases ruderals , 2011 .

[14]  Melinda D. Smith.  An ecological perspective on extreme climatic events: a synthetic definition and framework to guide future research , 2011 .

[15]  Marco A. Lara,et al.  Climate extremes initiate ecosystem‐regulating functions while maintaining productivity , 2011 .

[16]  D. Schimel,et al.  A climatically extreme year has large impacts on C4 species in tallgrass prairie ecosystems but only minor effects on species richness and other plant functional groups , 2011 .

[17]  I. Janssens,et al.  Whole-system responses of experimental plant communities to climate extremes imposed in different seasons. , 2011, The New phytologist.

[18]  W. Lauenroth,et al.  Dominant species, rather than diversity, regulates temporal stability of plant communities , 2011, Oecologia.

[19]  I. Janssens,et al.  Climatic characteristics of heat waves and their simulation in plant experiments , 2010 .

[20]  S. Collins,et al.  A framework for assessing ecosystem dynamics in response to chronic resource alterations induced by global change. , 2009, Ecology.

[21]  D. Schimel,et al.  Lagged effects of experimental warming and doubled precipitation on annual and seasonal aboveground biomass production in a tallgrass prairie , 2008 .

[22]  Christopher von Nagy,et al.  Prolonged suppression of ecosystem carbon dioxide uptake after an anomalously warm year , 2008, Nature.

[23]  M. Cadotte,et al.  Consequences of dominance: a review of evenness effects on local and regional ecosystem processes. , 2008, Ecology.

[24]  C. Beierkuhnlein,et al.  Effects of Extreme Weather Events on Plant Productivity and Tissue Die-Back are Modified by Community Composition , 2008, Ecosystems.

[25]  C. Beierkuhnlein,et al.  A new generation of climate‐change experiments: events, not trends , 2007 .

[26]  Daniel L. Childers,et al.  Estimating aboveground net primary production in grassland- and herbaceous-dominated ecosystems , 2007 .

[27]  A. Knapp,et al.  Soil water partitioning contributes to species coexistence in tallgrass prairie , 2007 .

[28]  T. Vesala,et al.  Reduction of ecosystem productivity and respiration during the European summer 2003 climate anomaly: a joint flux tower, remote sensing and modelling analysis , 2007 .

[29]  O. Sala,et al.  Vegetation structure constrains primary production response to water availability in the Patagonian steppe. , 2006, Ecology.

[30]  D. Hartnett,et al.  The Role of Seed and Vegetative Reproduction in Plant Recruitment and Demography in Tallgrass Prairie , 2006, Plant Ecology.

[31]  Eric F. Wood,et al.  Observed twentieth century land surface air temperature and precipitation covariability , 2005 .

[32]  K. Price,et al.  Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[33]  P. Ciais,et al.  Europe-wide reduction in primary productivity caused by the heat and drought in 2003 , 2005, Nature.

[34]  A. Knapp,et al.  Dominant species maintain ecosystem function with non‐random species loss , 2003 .

[35]  J. Blair,et al.  Rainfall Variability, Carbon Cycling, and Plant Species Diversity in a Mesic Grassland , 2002, Science.

[36]  O. Sala,et al.  A rainout shelter design for intercepting different amounts of rainfall , 2002, Oecologia.

[37]  Nick M. Haddad,et al.  Long-term oscillations in grassland productivity induced by drought , 2002 .

[38]  J. K. Koelliker,et al.  Frequency and Extent of Water Limitation to Primary Production in a Mesic Temperate Grassland , 2001, Ecosystems.

[39]  G. Meehl,et al.  Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. , 2000, Science.

[40]  B. D. Campbell,et al.  Sensitivity of three grassland communities to simulated extreme temperature and rainfall events , 2000 .

[41]  Alan K. Knapp,et al.  Altering Rainfall Timing and Quantity in a Mesic Grassland Ecosystem: Design and Performance of Rainfall Manipulation Shelters , 2000, Ecosystems.

[42]  Howard W. Hintz.  Grassland Dynamics: Long‐Term Ecological Research in Tallgrass Prairie , 1999 .

[43]  J. Overpeck,et al.  2000 Years of Drought Variability in the Central United States , 1998 .

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

[45]  Dwight A. Brown.  Early Nineteenth‐Century Grasslands of the Midcontinent Plains , 1993 .

[46]  S. Pimm.  The complexity and stability of ecosystems , 1984, Nature.

[47]  J. E. Weaver.  PRAIRIE PLANTS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT , 1968 .

[48]  R. H. Whittaker,et al.  Dominance and Diversity in Land Plant Communities , 1965, Science.

[49]  S. Goldhor.  Ecology , 1964, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[50]  B. Allred.  North American Prairie , 1954 .

[51]  J. E. Weaver,et al.  North American Prairie , 1955 .