Mu Xiaohan, Zheng Xinjun, Huang Gang, Tang Lisong, Li Yan
State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology/Fukang Station of Desert Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
School of Geographical Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350007, China.
Plants (Basel). 2023 Aug 1;12(15):2841. doi: 10.3390/plants12152841.
In the context of global climate change, changes in precipitation patterns will have profound effects on desert plants, particularly on shallow-rooted plants, such as ephemeral plants. Therefore, we conducted an experiment on artificial control of precipitation for four dominant ephemeral plants, , , , and , in the southern edge of Gurbantunggut Desert. We measured the importance value and some growth parameters of the four species under increased or decreased precipitation and constructed trait correlation networks for each of the four species. We also compared the response of increased or decreased precipitation to vegetation coverage. The results show that drought significantly reduced the survival rate, seed production and weight, and aboveground biomass accumulation of ephemeral plants. The four ephemeral plants showed different tolerance and response strategies to precipitation changes. and can avoid drought by accelerating life history, and , and can alleviate the negative effects of drought by adjusting leaf traits. However, the response of different species to the wet treatment was not consistent. Based on the results of the trait correlation network, we consider belongs to the ruderal plant, and belong to the competitive plants, and belongs to the stress-tolerant plant. The outstanding trait coordination ability of makes it show absolute dominance in the community. This indicate that ephemeral plants can adapt to precipitation changes to a certain extent, and that distinct competitive advantages in growth or reproduction enabled species coexistence in the same ecological niche. Nevertheless, drought significantly reduces their community cover and the ecological value of ephemeral plants. These findings established the basis to predict vegetation dynamics in arid areas under precipitation changes.
在全球气候变化的背景下，降水模式的变化将对沙漠植物产生深远影响，尤其是对浅根植物，如一年生短命植物。因此，我们对古尔班通古特沙漠南缘的四种优势一年生短命植物，[具体植物名称1]、[具体植物名称2]、[具体植物名称3]和[具体植物名称4]进行了人工控制降水实验。我们测量了降水增加或减少条件下这四个物种的重要值和一些生长参数，并构建了每个物种的性状相关网络。我们还比较了降水增加或减少对植被覆盖度的响应。结果表明，干旱显著降低了一年生短命植物的存活率、种子产量和重量以及地上生物量积累。这四种一年生短命植物对降水变化表现出不同的耐受和响应策略。[具体植物名称1]和[具体植物名称2]可以通过加速生活史来避免干旱，而[具体植物名称3]、[具体植物名称4]和[具体植物名称5]可以通过调整叶片性状来减轻干旱的负面影响。然而，不同物种对湿润处理的响应并不一致。基于性状相关网络的结果，我们认为[具体植物名称1]属于杂草植物，[具体植物名称2]和[具体植物名称3]属于竞争植物，[具体植物名称4]属于耐胁迫植物。[具体植物名称5]出色的性状协调能力使其在群落中表现出绝对优势。这表明一年生短命植物能够在一定程度上适应降水变化，并且在生长或繁殖方面具有明显的竞争优势，使得物种能够在同一生态位中共存。尽管如此，干旱显著降低了它们的群落覆盖度以及一年生短命植物的生态价值。这些发现为预测干旱地区降水变化下的植被动态奠定了基础。
