Aufsatz
Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt. Grant Number: 20016/464
Extreme droughts in oligotrophic mountain grasslands cause substantial species abundance changes and amplify community filtering
Abstract
Questions
Mountain grasslands can be strongly affected by extreme droughts such as those related to climate change. What are the impacts of extreme droughts on community composition, diversity, Ellenberg indicator scores and species groups in oligotrophic montane Nardus grasslands, and what are the associated mechanisms of vegetation change?
Location
Rhön Mountains, Germany.
Methods
Over three consecutive years, we investigated the effects of yearly droughts (April–August) in an experimental setup with rainout shelters. Owing to the coincidence of ambient extreme dry conditions in those years and our artificial rainfall reduction, we evaluated the contribution to community change of ambient drought conditions and the treatments. We analysed changes in community composition by applying redundancy analysis to species differences in comparison with the pretreatment year, and used mixed-effects models to test for changes in community-weighted means of Ellenberg indicator scores, sociological and functional groups.
Results
We found significant changes in species abundance and community structures in response to drought. Evenness increased, but species richness remained rather stable over time. Ellenberg indicator scores for temperature and nitrogen increased, whereas the score for moisture decreased. Simultaneously, dominant species declined and subdominants increased. Changes occurred with a time lag and were driven largely by the high ambient drought level and less by the artificial treatments.
Conclusions
Our results show that drought-related changes in community composition in Nardus grasslands occur across community structures, characteristic species, and species groups. The post-drought recovery of the community is shaped by community filters, which in particular allow subdominants to take advantage of newly available niches in the matrix, even if they lack strong drought tolerance. Our findings indicate a certain resilience of the community to droughts related to climate change, which suggests that the observed changes should not lead to an accelerated short-term decline in these grasslands, but that this cannot be excluded in the long term.
Mountain grasslands can be strongly affected by extreme droughts such as those related to climate change. What are the impacts of extreme droughts on community composition, diversity, Ellenberg indicator scores and species groups in oligotrophic montane Nardus grasslands, and what are the associated mechanisms of vegetation change?
Location
Rhön Mountains, Germany.
Methods
Over three consecutive years, we investigated the effects of yearly droughts (April–August) in an experimental setup with rainout shelters. Owing to the coincidence of ambient extreme dry conditions in those years and our artificial rainfall reduction, we evaluated the contribution to community change of ambient drought conditions and the treatments. We analysed changes in community composition by applying redundancy analysis to species differences in comparison with the pretreatment year, and used mixed-effects models to test for changes in community-weighted means of Ellenberg indicator scores, sociological and functional groups.
Results
We found significant changes in species abundance and community structures in response to drought. Evenness increased, but species richness remained rather stable over time. Ellenberg indicator scores for temperature and nitrogen increased, whereas the score for moisture decreased. Simultaneously, dominant species declined and subdominants increased. Changes occurred with a time lag and were driven largely by the high ambient drought level and less by the artificial treatments.
Conclusions
Our results show that drought-related changes in community composition in Nardus grasslands occur across community structures, characteristic species, and species groups. The post-drought recovery of the community is shaped by community filters, which in particular allow subdominants to take advantage of newly available niches in the matrix, even if they lack strong drought tolerance. Our findings indicate a certain resilience of the community to droughts related to climate change, which suggests that the observed changes should not lead to an accelerated short-term decline in these grasslands, but that this cannot be excluded in the long term.
Sponsorship
Gefördert im Rahmen des Projekts DEALDeutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt. Grant Number: 20016/464
Citation
@article{doi:10.17170/kobra-202110254950,
author={Stanik, Nils and Peppler-Lisbach, Cord and Rosenthal, Gert},
title={Extreme droughts in oligotrophic mountain grasslands cause substantial species abundance changes and amplify community filtering},
journal={Applied Vegetation Science},
year={2021}
}
0500 Oax
0501 Text $btxt$2rdacontent
0502 Computermedien $bc$2rdacarrier
1100 2021$n2021
1500 1/eng
2050 ##0##http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/13372
3000 Stanik, Nils
3010 Peppler-Lisbach, Cord
3010 Rosenthal, Gert
4000 Extreme droughts in oligotrophic mountain grasslands cause substantial species abundance changes and amplify community filtering / Stanik, Nils
4030
4060 Online-Ressource
4085 ##0##=u http://nbn-resolving.de/http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/13372=x R
4204 \$dAufsatz
4170
5550 {{Klimaänderung}}
5550 {{Dürre}}
5550 {{Vielfalt}}
5550 {{Grünland}}
5550 {{Deutschland}}
5550 {{Vegetationsentwicklung}}
5550 {{Pflanzenökologie}}
7136 ##0##http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/13372
<resource xsi:schemaLocation="http://datacite.org/schema/kernel-2.2 http://schema.datacite.org/meta/kernel-2.2/metadata.xsd"> 2021-11-10T08:12:01Z 2021-11-10T08:12:01Z 2021-10-08 doi:10.17170/kobra-202110254950 http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/13372 Gefördert im Rahmen des Projekts DEAL Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt. Grant Number: 20016/464 eng Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ climate change community diversity Nardus grasslands rainout shelter experiment semi-natural mountain grasslands species composition vegetation change 570 Extreme droughts in oligotrophic mountain grasslands cause substantial species abundance changes and amplify community filtering Aufsatz Questions Mountain grasslands can be strongly affected by extreme droughts such as those related to climate change. What are the impacts of extreme droughts on community composition, diversity, Ellenberg indicator scores and species groups in oligotrophic montane Nardus grasslands, and what are the associated mechanisms of vegetation change? Location Rhön Mountains, Germany. Methods Over three consecutive years, we investigated the effects of yearly droughts (April–August) in an experimental setup with rainout shelters. Owing to the coincidence of ambient extreme dry conditions in those years and our artificial rainfall reduction, we evaluated the contribution to community change of ambient drought conditions and the treatments. We analysed changes in community composition by applying redundancy analysis to species differences in comparison with the pretreatment year, and used mixed-effects models to test for changes in community-weighted means of Ellenberg indicator scores, sociological and functional groups. Results We found significant changes in species abundance and community structures in response to drought. Evenness increased, but species richness remained rather stable over time. Ellenberg indicator scores for temperature and nitrogen increased, whereas the score for moisture decreased. Simultaneously, dominant species declined and subdominants increased. Changes occurred with a time lag and were driven largely by the high ambient drought level and less by the artificial treatments. Conclusions Our results show that drought-related changes in community composition in Nardus grasslands occur across community structures, characteristic species, and species groups. The post-drought recovery of the community is shaped by community filters, which in particular allow subdominants to take advantage of newly available niches in the matrix, even if they lack strong drought tolerance. Our findings indicate a certain resilience of the community to droughts related to climate change, which suggests that the observed changes should not lead to an accelerated short-term decline in these grasslands, but that this cannot be excluded in the long term. open access Stanik, Nils Peppler-Lisbach, Cord Rosenthal, Gert doi:10.1111/avsc.12617 Grant Number: 20016/464 Klimaänderung Dürre Vielfalt Grünland Deutschland Vegetationsentwicklung Pflanzenökologie publishedVersion eissn:1654-109X Issue 4 Applied Vegetation Science Volume 24 false e12617 </resource>
The following license files are associated with this item:
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International