Warming and grazing interact to affect root dynamics in an alpine meadow
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Warming and grazing interact to affect root dynamics in an alpine meadow Yibo Wu & Biao Zhu & David M. Eissenstat & Shiping Wang & Yanhong Tang & Xiaoyong Cui
Received: 27 March 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
X. Cui (*) College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected]
enable us to predict the potential changes in the carbon budget and ecosystem functions in alpine regions. Methods We conducted a controlled 4-year field experiment with warming and grazing in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Our objective was to explore the responses of root standing crop, production, mortality and turnover rate to warming and grazing using minirhizotrons. Results Warming only significantly inhibited root mortality while grazing promoted all the four root metrics, which were also significantly influenced by the interaction of warming and grazing. Warming oppositely affected the four metrics under grazing versus non-grazing conditions. It significantly reduced root mean standing crop, annual production and mortality without grazing, but significantly stimulated only mean standing crop under grazing. Grazing had significantly negative and positive effects on mean standing crop in the no warming and warming plots. It promoted annual root production and mortality regardless of warming, whereas the effects were significant only under warming condition. Moreover, grazing significantly increased turnover rate in no warming plots but slightly decreased it in warming plots. Conclusions These findings highlight the non-additive interactions on the alpine meadow root dynamics between warming and grazing. Therefore, grazing regimes should be considered to better model the ecosystem feedback to global warming and to improve the prediction of future ecosystem functions.
X. Cui CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China
Keywords Warming . Grazing . Root production . Turnover rate . Soil depth . Alpine meadow
Abstract Aims Root dynamics plays a fundamental role in determining carbon allocation and other main ecological processes in grasslands. Understanding the responses of root activities to ongoing warming in grazed alpine meadows
Responsible Editor: Zhanhuan Shang Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04681-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Y. Wu School of Civil and Environment Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China B. Zhu : Y. Tang Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China D. M. Eissenstat Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16801, USA S. Wang Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Ti
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