Past global change studies have identified changes in species diversity as a major mechanism regulating temporal stability of production, measured as the ratio of the mean to the standard deviation of community biomass. However, the dominant plant functional group can also strongly determine the temporal stability. Here, in a grassland ecosystem subject to 15 years of experimental warming and hay harvest, we reveal that warming increases while hay harvest decreases temporal stability. This corresponds with the biomass of the dominant C4 functional group being higher under warming and lower under hay harvest. As a secondary mechanism, biodiversity also explains part of the variation in temporal stability of production. The structural equation modeling further shows that warming and hay harvest regulate the temporal stability through influencing both temporal mean and variation of production. Our findings demonstrate the joint roles that dominant plant functional group and biodiversity play in regulating temporal stability of an ecosystem under global change.
Publication Zheng Shi, Xia Xu, Lara Souza, Kevin Wilcox, Lifen Jiang, Junyi Liang, Jianyang Xia, Pablo Garcia-Palacios, Yiqi Luo 2016. Dual mechanisms regulate ecosystem stability under decade-long warming and hay harvest. Nature Communications, Accepted
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