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Effects of intra-year precipitation variability on shrub community productivity depend on the annual total rainfall

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Abstract

Aims

Changes in global precipitation regimes are caused by an increase in the frequency of extremely wet and dry years inter-annually and extreme rainfall intensity intra-annually. However, the interactive effects of these precipitation variabilities remain relatively unclear.

Methods

To better understand the responses of semi-arid ecosystems to precipitation changes, a manipulative field experiment was conducted with multilevel annual precipitation amounts and precipitation allocation, at a temporal scale, within desert shrubland in the Mu Us Desert in northern China.

Results

With fewer, yet larger, precipitation events, the annual net primary production (ANPP) was found to increase in dry years. The annual precipitation amount and precipitation intervals affected the community ANPP. However, precipitation intervals only affected the ANPP in the context of low precipitation amounts. Extending the intervals between precipitation events significantly increased the ANPP of shrubs and weeds however decreased that of grasses. The nursery effect of shrubs on the herbs and competition between the grass and weeds can interfere with the response of the community ANPP to precipitation.

Conclusions

With a global shift toward precipitation regimes dominated by lower frequency and higher intensity, an increase in productivity in this desert shrubland ecosystem is expected, with shrubs largely dominating the community composition. This study advances the current understanding of how community productivity is shaped by the interaction between inter-annual precipitation amount and intra-annual precipitation distribution. Meanwhile, plant–plant interactions between different functional species also have essential roles in community productivity stabilization within the context of precipitation change.

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Data availability

The data that supports the findings of this study are available in the supplementary material of this article.

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Funding

The study was sponsored by “the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.31700639)”.

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Author notes

  1. Ming-Han Yu and Ying-Ying He contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yanchi Research Station, School of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Ming-Han Yu, Ying-Ying He, Fu-Chong Zhang, Guo-dong Ding & Chun-Yuan Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of State Forestry Administration on Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Ming-Han Yu, Ying-Ying He, Fu-Chong Zhang, Guo-dong Ding & Chun-Yuan Wang

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  1. Ming-Han Yu
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  2. Ying-Ying He
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Contributions

M.H.Y. was responsible for the conception of ideas and design of methodology; Y.Y.H. and D.G.D collected the data; Y.Y.H. and C.Y.W. analyzed the data; M.H.Y. took charge of manuscript writing. All authors made significant contributions to the manuscript and approved its publication.

The manuscript has been edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by Wiley Editing Services.

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Correspondence to Ming-Han Yu.

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Responsible Editor: Susan Schwinning.

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Ming-Han Yu and Ying-Ying He should be regarded as co-first authors.

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Yu, MH., He, YY., Zhang, FC. et al. Effects of intra-year precipitation variability on shrub community productivity depend on the annual total rainfall. Plant Soil 487, 499–510 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05949-0

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