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Updated: Oct 7, 2025
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A CO2 Concentration Gradient Facility for Testing CO2 Enrichment and Soil Effects on Grassland Ecosystem Function
Published on: November 21, 2015
11.6K
Climate legacies determine grassland responses to future rainfall regimes
Caitlin M Broderick1, Kate Wilkins2, Melinda D Smith2,3
1Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA.
Global Change Biology
|January 11, 2022
Summary
Climate history significantly impacts ecosystem carbon cycling. Decades of irrigation in tallgrass prairies altered carbon fluxes and plant communities, making them less sensitive to drought and influencing responses to future climate changes.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Climate Science
- Soil Science
Background:
- Climate variability and droughts impact carbon (C) fluxes and ecosystem C balance.
- Climate history, or legacies, can persistently affect plant communities, soil microbes, and nutrient cycling, modulating responses to changing climate.
- Understanding these legacies is crucial for predicting terrestrial C cycling under future climate scenarios.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess how legacies of past precipitation regimes influence tallgrass prairie C cycling under new precipitation regimes.
- To investigate the effects of historical irrigation on aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), soil respiration, and soil C pools under altered precipitation.
- To determine if climate legacies alter the sensitivity of C cycling processes to drought.
Main Methods:
- Modified a long-term irrigation experiment (>25 years) simulating a wetter climate.
- Reversed irrigation and control treatments in some plots.
- Imposed experimental drought in historically irrigated and control plots to assess legacy effects on ANPP, soil respiration, and soil C pools.
Main Results:
- Long-term irrigation legacies led to higher C fluxes and altered labile soil C pools, with reduced sensitivity of ANPP and soil respiration to drought.
- Positive legacy effects on ANPP persisted for at least 3 years and were linked to changes in plant functional composition.
- Legacy effects on soil respiration were short-lived and dependent on current precipitation, while labile soil C and microbial biomass C sensitivity to drought increased with irrigation.
Conclusions:
- Climate history, particularly legacies from past precipitation, is a key determinant of terrestrial C cycling responses to climate change.
- Legacy effects can alter ecosystem sensitivity to new climate conditions, such as drought.
- Topography can modulate the strength and direction of climate legacies, highlighting the importance of landscape context in C cycling dynamics.
Keywords:
carbon cyclingclimate changeclimate legaciesgrasslandsnet primary productivitysoil respirationMore Related Videos
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