Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Ecology. 2024 Jan;105(1):e4193. doi: 10.1002/ecy.4193. Epub 2023 Nov 28.
Climate warming, often accompanied by extreme drought events, could have profound effects on both plant community structure and ecosystem functioning. However, how warming interacts with extreme drought to affect community- and ecosystem-level stability remains a largely open question. Using data from a manipulative experiment with three warming treatments in an alpine meadow that experienced one extreme drought event, we investigated how warming modulates resistance and recovery of community structural and ecosystem functional stability in facing with extreme drought. We found warming decreased resistance and recovery of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and structural resistance but increased resistance and recovery of belowground net primary productivity (BNPP), overall net primary productivity (NPP), and structural recovery. The findings highlight the importance of jointly considering above- and belowground processes when evaluating ecosystem stability under global warming and extreme climate events. The stability of dominant species, rather than species richness and species asynchrony, was identified as a key predictor of ecosystem functional resistance and recovery, except for BNPP recovery. In addition, structural resistance of common species contributed strongly to the resistance changes in BNPP and NPP. Importantly, community structural resistance and recovery dominated the resistance and recovery of BNPP and NPP, but not for ANPP, suggesting the different mechanisms underlie the maintenance of stability of above- versus belowground productivity. This study is among the first to explain that warming modulates ecosystem stability in the face of extreme drought and lay stress on the need to investigate ecological stability at the community level for a more mechanistic understanding of ecosystem stability in response to climate extremes.
气候变暖通常伴随着极端干旱事件，这可能对植物群落结构和生态系统功能产生深远影响。然而，变暖如何与极端干旱相互作用来影响群落和生态系统水平的稳定性，仍然是一个很大的悬而未决的问题。本研究利用高寒草甸经历一次极端干旱事件的控制实验数据，研究了变暖如何调节群落结构和生态系统功能稳定性对极端干旱的抵抗和恢复。研究发现，变暖降低了地上净初级生产力（ANPP）和结构抵抗的抵抗和恢复能力，但增加了地下净初级生产力（BNPP）、总净初级生产力（NPP）和结构恢复的抵抗和恢复能力。研究结果强调了在评估全球变暖下生态系统稳定性时，需要综合考虑地上和地下过程的重要性以及极端气候事件。除了 BNPP 恢复外，优势物种的稳定性，而不是物种丰富度和物种异步性，被确定为生态系统功能抵抗和恢复的关键预测因子。此外，常见物种的结构抵抗对 BNPP 和 NPP 的抵抗变化有很大的贡献。重要的是，群落结构抵抗和恢复主导着 BNPP 和 NPP 的抵抗和恢复，而不是 ANPP，这表明维持地上和地下生产力稳定性的机制不同。本研究首次解释了变暖如何在极端干旱条件下调节生态系统稳定性，并强调了需要在群落水平上研究生态稳定性，以更深入地了解生态系统对气候极端的响应机制。
