1. Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally.
- Author
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Smith MD, Wilkins KD, Holdrege MC, Wilfahrt P, Collins SL, Knapp AK, Sala OE, Dukes JS, Phillips RP, Yahdjian L, Gherardi LA, Ohlert T, Beier C, Fraser LH, Jentsch A, Loik ME, Maestre FT, Power SA, Yu Q, Felton AJ, Munson SM, Luo Y, Abdoli H, Abedi M, Alados CL, Alberti J, Alon M, An H, Anacker B, Anderson M, Auge H, Bachle S, Bahalkeh K, Bahn M, Batbaatar A, Bauerle T, Beard KH, Behn K, Beil I, Biancari L, Blindow I, Bondaruk VF, Borer ET, Bork EW, Bruschetti CM, Byrne KM, Cahill JF Jr, Calvo DA, Carbognani M, Cardoni A, Carlyle CN, Castillo-Garcia M, Chang SX, Chieppa J, Cianciaruso MV, Cohen O, Cordeiro AL, Cusack DF, Dahlke S, Daleo P, D'Antonio CM, Dietterich LH, S Doherty T, Dubbert M, Ebeling A, Eisenhauer N, Fischer FM, Forte TGW, Gebauer T, Gozalo B, Greenville AC, Guidoni-Martins KG, Hannusch HJ, Vatsø Haugum S, Hautier Y, Hefting M, Henry HAL, Hoss D, Ingrisch J, Iribarne O, Isbell F, Johnson Y, Jordan S, Kelly EF, Kimmel K, Kreyling J, Kröel-Dulay G, Kröpfl A, Kübert A, Kulmatiski A, Lamb EG, Larsen KS, Larson J, Lawson J, Leder CV, Linstädter A, Liu J, Liu S, Lodge AG, Longo G, Loydi A, Luan J, Curtis Lubbe F, Macfarlane C, Mackie-Haas K, Malyshev AV, Maturano-Ruiz A, Merchant T, Metcalfe DB, Mori AS, Mudongo E, Newman GS, Nielsen UN, Nimmo D, Niu Y, Nobre P, O'Connor RC, Ogaya R, Oñatibia GR, Orbán I, Osborne B, Otfinowski R, Pärtel M, Penuelas J, Peri PL, Peter G, Petraglia A, Picon-Cochard C, Pillar VD, Piñeiro-Guerra JM, Ploughe LW, Plowes RM, Portales-Reyes C, Prober SM, Pueyo Y, Reed SC, Ritchie EG, Rodríguez DA, Rogers WE, Roscher C, Sánchez AM, Santos BA, Cecilia Scarfó M, Seabloom EW, Shi B, Souza L, Stampfli A, Standish RJ, Sternberg M, Sun W, Sünnemann M, Tedder M, Thorvaldsen P, Tian D, Tielbörger K, Valdecantos A, van den Brink L, Vandvik V, Vankoughnett MR, Guri Velle L, Wang C, Wang Y, Wardle GM, Werner C, Wei C, Wiehl G, Williams JL, Wolf AA, Zeiter M, Zhang F, Zhu J, Zong N, and Zuo X
- Subjects
- Grassland, Carbon Cycle, Climate Change, Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases, Droughts, Ecosystem
- Abstract
Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of short-term (~1 y) drought events-the most common duration of drought-globally. Yet the impact of this intensification of drought on ecosystem functioning remains poorly resolved. This is due in part to the widely disparate approaches ecologists have employed to study drought, variation in the severity and duration of drought studied, and differences among ecosystems in vegetation, edaphic and climatic attributes that can mediate drought impacts. To overcome these problems and better identify the factors that modulate drought responses, we used a coordinated distributed experiment to quantify the impact of short-term drought on grassland and shrubland ecosystems. With a standardized approach, we imposed ~a single year of drought at 100 sites on six continents. Here we show that loss of a foundational ecosystem function-aboveground net primary production (ANPP)-was 60% greater at sites that experienced statistically extreme drought (1-in-100-y event) vs. those sites where drought was nominal (historically more common) in magnitude (35% vs. 21%, respectively). This reduction in a key carbon cycle process with a single year of extreme drought greatly exceeds previously reported losses for grasslands and shrublands. Our global experiment also revealed high variability in drought response but that relative reductions in ANPP were greater in drier ecosystems and those with fewer plant species. Overall, our results demonstrate with unprecedented rigor that the global impacts of projected increases in drought severity have been significantly underestimated and that drier and less diverse sites are likely to be most vulnerable to extreme drought., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.
- Published
- 2024
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