Impact of precipitation patterns on biomass and species richness of annuals in a dry steppe

Annuals are an important component part of plant communities in arid and semiarid grassland ecosystems. Although it is well known that precipitation has a significant impact on productivity and species richness of community or perennials, nevertheless, due to lack of measurements, especially long-te...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 10; no. 4; p. e0125300
Main Authors Yan, Hong, Liang, Cunzhu, Li, Zhiyong, Liu, Zhongling, Miao, Bailing, He, Chunguang, Sheng, Lianxi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 23.04.2015
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Analysis
Annual precipitation
Aridity
Biodiversity
Biomass
Coefficient of variation
Community relations
Desert Climate
Ecosystems
Grassland
Grasslands
Hydrologic data
Interannual variability
Labor productivity
Mongolia
Plant communities
Plant populations
Poaceae - classification
Poaceae - growth & development
Precipitation
Precipitation patterns
Rain
Species richness
Species Specificity
Mongolia
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Summary:Annuals are an important component part of plant communities in arid and semiarid grassland ecosystems. Although it is well known that precipitation has a significant impact on productivity and species richness of community or perennials, nevertheless, due to lack of measurements, especially long-term experiment data, there is little information on how quantity and patterns of precipitation affect similar attributes of annuals. This study addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing how quantity and temporal patterns of precipitation affect aboveground biomass, interannual variation aboveground biomass, relative aboveground biomass, and species richness of annuals using a 29-year dataset from a dry steppe site at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station. Results showed that aboveground biomass and relative aboveground biomass of annuals increased with increasing precipitation. The coefficient of variation in aboveground biomass of annuals decreased significantly with increasing annual and growing-season precipitation. Species richness of annuals increased significantly with increasing annual precipitation and growing-season precipitation. Overall, this study highlights the importance of precipitation for aboveground biomass and species richness of annuals.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Conceived and designed the experiments: LS CL HY. Performed the experiments: HY CL Z. Liu. Analyzed the data: HY Z. Li BM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LS CL HY CH. Wrote the paper: HY CL LS. Obtained permission for field site use: CL Z. Liu.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0125300