Research Applications
Global climate change is expected to have a profound effect on plant communities over the next century. Warming and N deposition have already decreased diversity and altered species phenology and range distributions.
Collins et al. (2010) determined the effects of warming and N addition in a Chihuahuan Desert grassland. Increased warming caused an increase in live plant cover. Although N did not affect total live plant cover, N addition did result in increased cover of blue grama (B. gracilis). These results show that this aridland ecosystem rapidly responds to changes in temperature and N deposition.
PRS® N supply rates and percent cover of common native plants in the Chihuahuan Desert. PRS® supply rates are N per 10-cm2/3 months. Data in brackets are standard errors.
Examples
- Petrie, M.D., S.L. Collins and M.E. Litvak. 2015. The ecological role of small rainfall events in a desert grassland. Ecohydrology 8: 1614–1622. Research Summary.
- Climate change alters stoichiometry of phosphorus and nitrogen in a semiarid grassland
- Plant response to climate change varies with topograpy, interactions with neighbors, and ecotype
- Carry over from previous year environmental conditions alters dominance hierarchy in a prairie plant community
- Short-term plant community responses to warming and defoliation in a northern temperate grassland
- Changes in duration of reproductive phases and lagged phenological response to experimental climate warming
- Contrasting effects of elevated CO2 and warming on nitrogen cycling in a semiarid grassland
- Soil heterogeneity buffers community response to climate change in species-rich grassland
- Impacts of an anomalously warm year on soil nitrogen availability in experimentally manipulated intact tallgrass prairie ecosystems
- Lagged effects of experimental warming and doubled precipitation on annual and seasonal aboveground biomass production in a tallgrass prairie