Warming of alpine tundra enhances belowground production and shifts community towards resource acquisition traits
Abstract
Abstract Climate warming is expected to stimulate plant growth in high‐elevation and high‐latitude ecosystems, significantly increasing aboveground net primary production (ANPP). However, the effects of simultaneous changes in temperature, snowmelt timing, and summer water availability on total net primary production (NPP)—and elucidation of both above‐ and belowground responses—remain an important area in need of further study. In particular, measures of belowground net primary productivity (BNPP) are required to understand whether ANPP changes reflect changes in allocation or are indicative of a whole plant NPP response. Further, plant functional traits provide a key way to scale from the individual plant to the community level and provide insight into drivers of NPP responses to environmental change. We used infrared heaters to warm an alpine plant community at Niwot Ridge, Colorado, and applied supplemental water to compensate for soil water loss induced by warming. We measured ANPP, BNPP, and leaf and root functional traits across treatments after 5 yr of continuous warming. Community‐level ANPP and total NPP (ANPP + BNPP) did not respond to heating or watering, but BNPP increased in response to heating. Heating decreased community‐level leaf dry matter content and increased total root length, indicating a shift in strategy from resource conservation to acquisitionmore »
- Authors:
-
- Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences No. 9 Section 4, Renminnan Road Chengdu Sichuan 610041 China, Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Colorado State University Campus Delivery 1476 Fort Collins Colorado 80523 USA
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Colorado State University Campus Delivery 1476 Fort Collins Colorado 80523 USA
- Southwest Biological Science Center United States Geological Survey 2290 S West Resource Boulevard Moab Utah 84532 USA
- Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences No. 9 Section 4, Renminnan Road Chengdu Sichuan 610041 China
- U.S. Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center 970 Lusk Street Boise Idaho 83706 USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research University of Colorado Boulder Colorado 80309‐0450 USA
- Energy and Resources Group University of California, Berkeley 310 Barrows Hall #3050 Berkeley California 94720 USA
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, Merced, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1678803
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1786412; OSTI ID: 1849832
- Grant/Contract Number:
- DE‐FG02‐07ER64457; FG02-07ER64457; 41271224; 4157120; DEB-1637686; DEB-141410
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Ecosphere
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Ecosphere Journal Volume: 11 Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 2150-8925
- Publisher:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Environmental Sciences & Ecology; alpine tundra; belowground plant production; functional traits; Rocky Mountains; soil moisture; warming; water use efficiency
Citation Formats
Yang, Yan, Klein, Julia A., Winkler, Daniel E., Peng, Ahui, Lazarus, Brynne E., Germino, Matthew J., Suding, Katharine N., Smith, Jane G., and Kueppers, Lara M. Warming of alpine tundra enhances belowground production and shifts community towards resource acquisition traits. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1002/ecs2.3270.
Yang, Yan, Klein, Julia A., Winkler, Daniel E., Peng, Ahui, Lazarus, Brynne E., Germino, Matthew J., Suding, Katharine N., Smith, Jane G., & Kueppers, Lara M. Warming of alpine tundra enhances belowground production and shifts community towards resource acquisition traits. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3270
Yang, Yan, Klein, Julia A., Winkler, Daniel E., Peng, Ahui, Lazarus, Brynne E., Germino, Matthew J., Suding, Katharine N., Smith, Jane G., and Kueppers, Lara M. Tue .
"Warming of alpine tundra enhances belowground production and shifts community towards resource acquisition traits". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3270.
@article{osti_1678803,
title = {Warming of alpine tundra enhances belowground production and shifts community towards resource acquisition traits},
author = {Yang, Yan and Klein, Julia A. and Winkler, Daniel E. and Peng, Ahui and Lazarus, Brynne E. and Germino, Matthew J. and Suding, Katharine N. and Smith, Jane G. and Kueppers, Lara M.},
abstractNote = {Abstract Climate warming is expected to stimulate plant growth in high‐elevation and high‐latitude ecosystems, significantly increasing aboveground net primary production (ANPP). However, the effects of simultaneous changes in temperature, snowmelt timing, and summer water availability on total net primary production (NPP)—and elucidation of both above‐ and belowground responses—remain an important area in need of further study. In particular, measures of belowground net primary productivity (BNPP) are required to understand whether ANPP changes reflect changes in allocation or are indicative of a whole plant NPP response. Further, plant functional traits provide a key way to scale from the individual plant to the community level and provide insight into drivers of NPP responses to environmental change. We used infrared heaters to warm an alpine plant community at Niwot Ridge, Colorado, and applied supplemental water to compensate for soil water loss induced by warming. We measured ANPP, BNPP, and leaf and root functional traits across treatments after 5 yr of continuous warming. Community‐level ANPP and total NPP (ANPP + BNPP) did not respond to heating or watering, but BNPP increased in response to heating. Heating decreased community‐level leaf dry matter content and increased total root length, indicating a shift in strategy from resource conservation to acquisition in response to warming. Water use efficiency (WUE) decreased with heating, suggesting alleviation of moisture constraints that may have enabled the plant community to increase productivity. Heating may have decreased WUE by melting snow earlier and creating more days early in the growing season with adequate soil moisture, but stimulated dry mass investment in roots as soils dried down later in the growing season. Overall, this study highlights how ANPP and BNPP responses to climate change can diverge, and encourages a closer examination of belowground processes, especially in alpine systems, where the majority of NPP occurs belowground.},
doi = {10.1002/ecs2.3270},
journal = {Ecosphere},
number = 10,
volume = 11,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Oct 20 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Tue Oct 20 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3270
Works referenced in this record:
Differential response of alpine steppe and alpine meadow to climate warming in the central Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
journal, June 2016
- Ganjurjav, Hasbagan; Gao, Qingzhu; Gornish, Elise S.
- Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Vol. 223
Differential effects of functional traits on aboveground biomass in semi-natural grasslands
journal, November 2009
- Schumacher, Jens; Roscher, Christiane
- Oikos, Vol. 118, Issue 11
Shifting Dominance Within a Montane Vegetation Community: Results of a Climate-Warming Experiment
journal, February 1995
- Harte, J.; Shaw, R.
- Science, Vol. 267, Issue 5199
Productivity of North American grasslands is increased under future climate scenarios despite rising aridity
journal, February 2016
- Hufkens, Koen; Keenan, Trevor F.; Flanagan, Lawrence B.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 6, Issue 7
Functional traits predict relationship between plant abundance dynamic and long-term climate warming
journal, October 2013
- Soudzilovskaia, N. A.; Elumeeva, T. G.; Onipchenko, V. G.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 110, Issue 45
Sex-specific responses of Populus cathayana to drought and elevated temperatures
journal, June 2008
- Xu, Xiao; Yang, Fan; Xiao, Xiangwen
- Plant, Cell & Environment, Vol. 31, Issue 6
Responses of terrestrial ecosystems to temperature and precipitation change: a meta-analysis of experimental manipulation: META-ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTAL MANIPULATION
journal, January 2011
- Wu, Zhuoting; Dijkstra, Paul; Koch, George W.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 17, Issue 2
Growth strategies and threshold responses to water deficit modulate effects of warming on tree seedlings from forest to alpine
journal, September 2017
- Lazarus, Brynne E.; Castanha, Cristina; Germino, Matthew J.
- Journal of Ecology, Vol. 106, Issue 2
Permafrost and drought regulate vulnerability of Tibetan Plateau grasslands to warming
journal, May 2018
- Yang, Yan; Hopping, Kelly A.; Wang, Genxu
- Ecosphere, Vol. 9, Issue 5
Increased temperature and precipitation interact to affect root production, mortality, and turnover in a temperate steppe: implications for ecosystem C cycling
journal, April 2010
- Bai, Wenming; Wan, Shiqiang; Niu, Shuli
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 16, Issue 4
Morphology and response of roots of pasture species to phosphorus and nitrogen nutrition
journal, August 2006
- Hill, J. O.; Simpson, R. J.; Moore, A. D.
- Plant and Soil, Vol. 286, Issue 1-2
Supply pre-emption, not concentration reduction, is the mechanism of competition for nutrients
journal, March 2005
- Craine, Joseph M.; Fargione, Joseph; Sugita, Shinya
- New Phytologist, Vol. 166, Issue 3
Warming and land use change concurrently erode ecosystem services in Tibet
journal, September 2018
- Hopping, Kelly A.; Knapp, Alan K.; Dorji, Tsechoe
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 24, Issue 11
New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide
journal, January 2013
- Pérez-Harguindeguy, N.; Díaz, S.; Garnier, E.
- Australian Journal of Botany, Vol. 61, Issue 3
Impact of drought on productivity and water use efficiency in 29 genotypes of Populus deltoides x Populus nigra
journal, February 2006
- Monclus, Romain; Dreyer, Erwin; Villar, Marc
- New Phytologist, Vol. 169, Issue 4
Root structure-function relationships in 74 species: evidence of a root economics spectrum related to carbon economy
journal, January 2016
- Roumet, Catherine; Birouste, Marine; Picon-Cochard, Catherine
- New Phytologist, Vol. 210, Issue 3
Predicting fine root lifespan from plant functional traits in temperate trees
journal, June 2012
- Luke McCormack, M.; Adams, Thomas S.; Smithwick, Erica A. H.
- New Phytologist, Vol. 195, Issue 4
Soil moisture mediates alpine life form and community productivity responses to warming
journal, June 2016
- Winkler, Daniel E.; Chapin, Kenneth J.; Kueppers, Lara M.
- Ecology, Vol. 97, Issue 6
Model selection in ecology and evolution
journal, February 2004
- Johnson, Jerald B.; Omland, Kristian S.
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Vol. 19, Issue 2
NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis
journal, June 2012
- Schneider, Caroline A.; Rasband, Wayne S.; Eliceiri, Kevin W.
- Nature Methods, Vol. 9, Issue 7
Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome
journal, September 2018
- Bjorkman, Anne D.; Myers-Smith, Isla H.; Elmendorf, Sarah C.
- Nature, Vol. 562, Issue 7725
Long-term experimental warming and nutrient additions increase productivity in tall deciduous shrub tundra
journal, June 2014
- DeMarco, Jennie; Mack, Michelle C.; Bret-Harte, M. Syndonia
- Ecosphere, Vol. 5, Issue 6
Elevation-dependent warming in global climate model simulations at high spatial resolution
journal, June 2018
- Palazzi, Elisa; Mortarini, Luca; Terzago, Silvia
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 52, Issue 5-6
Effects of climate change on snowpack and fire potential in the western USA
journal, February 2017
- Gergel, Diana R.; Nijssen, Bart; Abatzoglou, John T.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 141, Issue 2
TRY - a global database of plant traits: TRY - A GLOBAL DATABASE OF PLANT TRAITS
journal, June 2011
- Kattge, J.; DÍAz, S.; Lavorel, S.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 17, Issue 9
Decline in Medicinal and Forage Species with Warming is Mediated by Plant Traits on the Tibetan Plateau
journal, June 2008
- Klein, Julia A.; Harte, John; Zhao, Xin-Quan
- Ecosystems, Vol. 11, Issue 5
Cascading effects of long-term land-use changes on plant traits and ecosystem functioning
journal, January 2012
- Laliberté, Etienne; Tylianakis, Jason M.
- Ecology, Vol. 93, Issue 1
Using Plant Functional Traits to Explain Diversity–Productivity Relationships
journal, May 2012
- Roscher, Christiane; Schumacher, Jens; Gubsch, Marlén
- PLoS ONE, Vol. 7, Issue 5
Experimental Warming, not Grazing, Decreases Rangeland Quality on the Tibetan Plateau
journal, March 2007
- Klein, Julia A.; Harte, John; Zhao, Xin-Quan
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 17, Issue 2
Snowmelt Timing Regulates Community Composition, Phenology, and Physiological Performance of Alpine Plants
journal, July 2018
- Winkler, Daniel E.; Butz, Ramona J.; Germino, Matthew J.
- Frontiers in Plant Science, Vol. 9
Elevation-dependent warming in mountain regions of the world
journal, April 2015
- Working Group, Mountain Research Initiative EDW
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 5, Issue 5, p. 424-430
Infrared heater arrays for warming ecosystem field plots: INFRARED HEATER ARRAYS
journal, November 2007
- Kimball, Bruce A.; Conley, Matthew M.; Wang, Shiping
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 14, Issue 2
Linking leaf and root trait syndromes among 39 grassland and savannah species
journal, April 2005
- Tjoelker, M. G.; Craine, J. M.; Wedin, D.
- New Phytologist, Vol. 167, Issue 2
Model selection for ecologists: the worldviews of AIC and BIC
journal, March 2014
- Aho, Ken; Derryberry, DeWayne; Peterson, Teri
- Ecology, Vol. 95, Issue 3
Multidecadal Climate Variability and the “Warming Hole” in North America: Results from CMIP5 Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Climate Simulations*
journal, May 2013
- Kumar, Sanjiv; Kinter, James; Dirmeyer, Paul A.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 11
Climate warming and biomass accumulation of terrestrial plants: a meta-analysis
journal, July 2010
- Lin, Delu; Xia, Jianyang; Wan, Shiqiang
- New Phytologist, Vol. 188, Issue 1
Assessing the generality of global leaf trait relationships
journal, February 2005
- Wright, Ian J.; Reich, Peter B.; Cornelissen, Johannes H. C.
- New Phytologist, Vol. 166, Issue 2
Ecosystem responses to warming and watering in typical and desert steppes
journal, October 2016
- Xu, Zhenzhu; Hou, Yanhui; Zhang, Lihua
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Global assessment of experimental climate warming on tundra vegetation: heterogeneity over space and time: Warming effects on tundra vegetation
journal, December 2011
- Elmendorf, Sarah C.; Henry, Gregory H. R.; Hollister, Robert D.
- Ecology Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 2
Plant Physiological Ecology
book, January 2008
- Lambers, Hans; Chapin, F. Stuart; Pons, Thijs L.
- Springer New York, NY
The Magnitude and Distribution of Belowground Plant Structures in the Alpine Tundra of Niwot Ridge, Colorado
journal, May 1977
- Webber, P. J.; May, Diane Ebert
- Arctic and Alpine Research, Vol. 9, Issue 2
Scaling environmental change through the community-level: a trait-based response-and-effect framework for plants
journal, May 2008
- Suding, Katharine N.; Lavorel, Sandra; Chapin, F. S.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 14, Issue 5
Long-term warming effects on root morphology, root mass distribution, and microbial activity in two dry tundra plant communities in northern Sweden
journal, December 2007
- Björk, Robert G.; Majdi, Hooshang; Klemedtsson, Leif
- New Phytologist, Vol. 176, Issue 4
RESPONSES OF N-LIMITED ECOSYSTEMS TO INCREASED CO 2 : A BALANCED-NUTRITION, COUPLED-ELEMENT-CYCLES MODEL
journal, May 1997
- Rastetter, Edward B.; Ågren, Göran I.; Shaver, Gaius R.
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 7, Issue 2
Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming
journal, April 2012
- Elmendorf, Sarah C.; Henry, Gregory H. R.; Hollister, Robert D.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 2, Issue 6
Western water and climate change
journal, December 2015
- Dettinger, Michael; Udall, Bradley; Georgakakos, Aris
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 25, Issue 8
Belowground carbon responses to experimental warming regulated by soil moisture change in an alpine ecosystem of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
journal, September 2015
- Xue, Xian; Peng, Fei; You, Quangang
- Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 5, Issue 18
A comparison of water and carbon dioxide exchange at a windy alpine tundra and subalpine forest site near Niwot Ridge, Colorado
journal, April 2009
- Blanken, Peter D.; Williams, Mark W.; Burns, Sean P.
- Biogeochemistry, Vol. 95, Issue 1
Plant Functional Markers Capture Ecosystem Properties During Secondary Succession
journal, September 2004
- Garnier, Eric; Cortez, Jacques; Billès, Georges
- Ecology, Vol. 85, Issue 9
Incorporating plant functional diversity effects in ecosystem service assessments
journal, December 2007
- Diaz, S.; Lavorel, S.; de Bello, F.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104, Issue 52
Long-term ecosystem level experiments at Toolik Lake, Alaska, and at Abisko, Northern Sweden: generalizations and differences in ecosystem and plant type responses to global change
journal, January 2004
- van Wijk, M. T.; Clemmensen, K. E.; Shaver, G. R.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 10, Issue 1
Interactive responses of old-field plant growth and composition to warming and precipitation
journal, February 2012
- Hoeppner, Susanne S.; Dukes, Jeffrey S.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 18, Issue 5
Increased plant productivity in Alaskan tundra as a result of experimental warming of soil and permafrost: Increased plant productivity in Alaskan tundra
journal, November 2011
- Natali, Susan M.; Schuur, Edward A. G.; Rubin, Rachel L.
- Journal of Ecology, Vol. 100, Issue 2
Functional Trait Changes, Productivity Shifts and Vegetation Stability in Mountain Grasslands during a Short-Term Warming
journal, October 2015
- Debouk, Haifa; de Bello, Francesco; Sebastià, Maria-Teresa
- PLOS ONE, Vol. 10, Issue 10
Net primary productivity and rain-use efficiency as affected by warming, altered precipitation, and clipping in a mixed-grass prairie
journal, July 2013
- Xu, Xia; Sherry, Rebecca A.; Niu, Shuli
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 19, Issue 9