@article {6294, title = {Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, volume = {121}, year = {2024}, pages = {e230988112}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.2309881120}, url = {https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309881120}, author = {M. D. Smith and Wilkins, Kate D. and Holdrege, Martin C. and Wilfahrt, Peter and S.L Collins and Knapp, Alan K. and Sala, Osvaldo E. and Dukes, Jeffrey S. and Phillips, Richard P. and Yahdjian, Laura and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Ohlert, Timothy and Beier, Claus and Fraser, Lauchlan H. and Jentsch, Anke and Loik, Michael E. and Maestre, Fernando T. and Power, Sally A. and Yu, Qiang and Felton, Andrew J. and Munson, Seth M. and Luo, Yiqi and Abdoli, Hamed and Abedi, Mehdi and Alados, Concepci{\'o}n L. and Alberti, Juan and Alon, Moshe and An, Hui and Anacker, Brian and Anderson, Maggie and Auge, Harald and Bachle, Seton and Bahalkeh, Khadijeh and Bahn, Michael and Batbaatar, Amgaa and Bauerle, Taryn and Beard, Karen H. and Behn, Kai and Beil, Ilka and Biancari, Lucio and Blindow, Irmgard and Bondaruk, Viviana Florencia and Borer, Elizabeth T. and Bork, Edward W. and Bruschetti, Carlos Martin and Byrne, Kerry M. and Cahill Jr., James F. and Calvo, Dianela A. and Carbognani, Michele and Cardoni, Augusto and Carlyle, Cameron N. and Castillo-Garcia, Miguel and Chang, Scott X. and Chieppa, Jeff and Cianciaruso, Marcus V. and Cohen, Ofer and Cordeiro, Amanda L. and Cusack, Daniela F. and Dahlke, Sven and Daleo, Pedro and D{\textquoteright}Antonio, Carla M. and Dietterich, Lee H. and S. Doherty, Tim and Dubbert, Maren and Ebeling, Anne and Eisenhauer, Nico and Fischer, Fel{\'\i}cia M. and Forte, T{\textquoteright}ai G. W. and Gebauer, Tobias and Gozalo, Beatriz and Greenville, Aaron C. and Guidoni-Martins, Karlo G. and Hannusch, Heather J. and Vats{\o} Haugum, Siri and Hautier, Yann and Hefting, Mariet and Henry, Hugh A. L. and Hoss, Daniela and Ingrisch, Johannes and Iribarne, Oscar and Isbell, Forest and Johnson, Yari and Jordan, Samuel and Kelly, Eugene F. and Kimmel, Kaitlin and Kreyling, Juergen and Kr{\"o}el-Dulay, Gy{\"o}rgy and Kr{\"o}pfl, Alicia and K{\"u}bert, Angelika and Kulmatiski, Andrew and Lamb, Eric G. and Larsen, Klaus Steenberg and Larson, Julie and Lawson, Jason and Leder, Cintia V. and Linst{\"a}dter, Anja and Liu, Jielin and Liu, Shirong and Lodge, Alexandra G. and Longo, Grisel and Loydi, Alejandro and Luan, Junwei and Curtis Lubbe, Frederick and Macfarlane, Craig and Mackie-Haas, Kathleen and Malyshev, Andrey V. and Maturano-Ruiz, {\'a}n and Merchant, Thomas and Metcalfe, Daniel B. and Mori, Akira S. and Mudongo, Edwin and Newman, Gregory S. and Nielsen, Uffe N. and Nimmo, Dale and Niu, Yujie and Nobre, Paola and O{\textquoteright}Connor, Rory C. and Ogaya, Rom{\`a} and O{\~n}atibia, Gast{\'o}n R. and Orb{\'a}n, Ildik{\'o} and Osborne, Brooke and Otfinowski, Rafael and P{\"a}rtel, Meelis and Pe{\~n}uelas, Josep and Peri, Pablo L. and Peter, Guadalupe and Petraglia, Alessandro and Picon-Cochard, Catherine and Pillar, Val{\'e}rio D. and Pi{\~N}Eiro-Guerra, Juan Manuel and Ploughe, Laura W. and Plowes, Robert M. and Portales-Reyes, Cristy and Prober, Suzanne M. and Pueyo, Yolanda and Reed, Sasha C. and Ritchie, Euan G. and Rodr{\'\i}guez, Ayl{\'e}n and Rogers, William E. and Roscher, Christiane and S{\'a}nchez, Ana M. and Santos, Br{\'a}ulio A. and Scarf{\'o}, Mar{\'\i}a and Seabloom, Eric W. and Shi, Baoku and Souza, Lara and Stampfli, Andreas and Standish, Rachel J. and Sternberg, Marcelo and Sun, Wei and S{\"u}nnemann, Marie and Tedder, Michelle and Thorvaldsen, {\r a}l and Tian, Dashuan and Tielb{\"o}rger, Katja and Valdecantos, Alejandro and van den Brink, Liesbeth and Vandvik, Vigdis and Vankoughnett, Mathew R. and Guri Velle, Liv and Wang, Changhui and Wang, Yi and Wardle, Glenda M. and Werner, Christiane and Wei, Cunzheng and Wiehl, Georg and Williams, Jennifer L. and Wolf, Amelia A. and Zeiter, Michaela and Zhang, Fawei and Zhu, Juntao and Zong, Ning and Zuo, Xiaoan} } @article {6023, title = {Precipitation effects on nematode diversity and carbon footprint across grasslands}, journal = {Global Change Biology}, volume = {28}, year = {2022}, pages = {2124-2132}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1111/gcb.16055}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16055}, author = {Franco, Andr{\'e} L.C. and Guan, Pingting and Cui, Shuyan and Tomasel, Cecilia M. and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Sala, O.E. and Wall, Diana H.} } @article {5970, title = {Negative effects of nitrogen override positive effects of phosphorus on grassland legumes worldwide}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, volume = {118}, year = {2021}, pages = {e2023718118}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.2023718118}, url = {http://www.pnas.org/lookup/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023718118}, author = {Tognetti, Pedro M. and Prober, Suzanne M. and B{\'a}ez, Selene and Chaneton, Enrique J. and Firn, Jennifer and Risch, Anita C. and Schuetz, Martin and Simonsen, Anna K. and Yahdjian, Laura and Borer, Elizabeth T. and Seabloom, Eric W. and Arnillas, Carlos Alberto and Bakker, Jonathan D. and Brown, Cynthia S. and Cadotte, Marc W. and Caldeira, Maria C. and Daleo, Pedro and Dwyer, John M. and Fay, Philip A. and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Hagenah, Nicole and Hautier, Yann and Kimberly J. Komatsu and McCulley, Rebecca L. and Price, Jodi N. and Standish, Rachel J. and Stevens, Carly J. and Wragg, Peter D. and Sankaran, Mahesh} } @article {KNZ001994, title = {Body size structure of soil fauna along geographic and temporal gradients of precipitation in grasslands}, journal = {Soil Biology and Biochemistry}, volume = {140}, year = {2020}, pages = {107638}, abstract = {

Precipitation is a global driver of animal abundance and diversity in terrestrial ecosystems, but we know little on how it influences the body size structure of invertebrate communities, particularly soil fauna. It is unclear whether aridity limits the abundance of large-bodied soil invertebrates, and whether temporal precipitation changes can induce local shifts. The potential role of trophic identity in modulating such relationships is also unexplored. Here we investigate the community-weighted mean body mass of soil nematodes, globally widespread invertebrates, in a two-year manipulative experiment with experimental drought and increased rainfall, conducted in three North American grassland ecosystems ranging from arid to semiarid and mesic conditions. We predict that community-weighted mean increases along with precipitation, and that long-term aridity prevents body size shifts in response to within-site temporal changes in precipitation. Nematode community-weighted mean mass increased from arid to mesic conditions. Altered precipitation within sites had much weaker effects, and none detectable in the arid site. When analysing community-weighted mean mass separately by feeding group, only plant-feeding nematodes responded positively to rainfall addition in semiarid and mesic conditions, as well as to ambient interannual differences consistently across sites, presumably due to a tighter ecological linkage with primary production. Our findings point to aridity as an environmental filter against large-bodied soil nematodes, with limited potential for community body size shifts in response to extremely dry or wet years. However, the different responses of plant-feeding taxa from other functional groups indicate potential mismatches between morphologically similar taxa in multitrophic invertebrate communities.

}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.107638}, url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0038071719303025}, author = {Andriuzzi, Walter S. and Franco, Andr{\'e} L.C. and Ankrom, Katharine E. and Cui, Shuyan and de Tomasel, Cecilia M. and Guan, Pingting and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Sala, Osvaldo E. and Wall, Diana H.} } @article {KNZ002004, title = {Nutrient addition increases grassland sensitivity to droughts}, journal = {Ecology}, volume = {101}, year = {2020}, pages = {e02981}, abstract = {

Grasslands worldwide are expected to experience an increase in extreme events such as drought, along with simultaneous increases in mineral nutrient inputs as a result of human industrial activities. These changes are likely to interact because elevated nutrient inputs may alter plant diversity and increase the sensitivity to droughts. Dividing a system\’s sensitivity to drought into resistance to change during the drought and rate of recovery after the drought generates insights into different dimensions of the system\’s resilience in the face of drought. Here, we examine the effects of experimental nutrient fertilization and the resulting diversity loss on the resistance to and recovery from severe regional droughts. We do this at 13 North American sites spanning gradients of aridity, five annual grasslands in California, and eight perennial grasslands in the Great Plains. We measured rate of resistance as the change in annual aboveground biomass (ANPP) per unit change in growing season precipitation as conditions declined from normal to drought. We measured recovery as the change in ANPP during the postdrought period and the return to normal precipitation. Resistance and recovery did not vary across the 400-mm range of mean growing season precipitation spanned by our sites in the Great Plains. However, chronic nutrient fertilization in the Great Plains reduced drought resistance and increased drought recovery. In the California annual grasslands, arid sites had a greater recovery postdrought than mesic sites, and nutrient addition had no consistent effects on resistance or recovery. Across all study sites, we found that predrought species richness in natural grasslands was not consistently associated with rates of resistance to or recovery from the drought, in contrast to earlier findings from experimentally assembled grassland communities. Taken together, these results suggest that human-induced eutrophication may destabilize grassland primary production, but the effects of this may vary across regions and flora, especially between perennial and annual-dominated grasslands.

}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1002/ecy.2981}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ecy.2981}, author = {Bharath, Siddharth and E.T. Borer and L.A. Biederman and D.M. Blumenthal and Fay, Philip A. and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Knops, Johannes M. H. and Leakey, Andrew D. B. and Yahdjian, Laura and Seabloom, Eric W.} } @article {KNZ001884, title = {Regional grassland productivity responses to precipitation during multiyear above- and below-average rainfall periods}, journal = {Global Change Biology}, volume = {24}, year = {2018}, pages = {1935 - 1951}, abstract = {

There is considerable uncertainty in the magnitude and direction of changes in precipitation associated with climate change, and ecosystem responses are also uncertain. Multiyear periods of above- and below-average rainfall may foretell consequences of changes in rainfall regime. We compiled long-term aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and precipitation (PPT) data for eight North American grasslands, and quantified relationships between ANPP and PPT at each site, and in 1-3\ year periods of above- and below-average rainfall for mesic, semiarid cool, and semiarid warm grassland types. Our objective was to improve understanding of ANPP dynamics associated with changing climatic conditions by contrasting PPT-ANPP relationships in above- and below-average PPT years to those that occurred during sequences of multiple above- and below-average years. We found differences in PPT-ANPP relationships in above- and below-average years compared to long-term site averages, and variation in ANPP not explained by PPT totals that likely are attributed to legacy effects. The correlation between ANPP and current- and prior-year conditions changed from year to year throughout multiyear periods, with some legacy effects declining, and new responses emerging. Thus, ANPP in a given year was influenced by sequences of conditions that varied across grassland types and climates. Most importantly, the influence of prior-year ANPP often increased with the length of multiyear periods, whereas the influence of the amount of current-year PPT declined. Although the mechanisms by which a directional change in the frequency of above- and below-average years imposes a persistent change in grassland ANPP require further investigation, our results emphasize the importance of legacy effects on productivity for sequences of above- vs. below-average years, and illustrate the utility of long-term data to examine these patterns.

}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1111/gcb.2018.24.issue-510.1111/gcb.14024}, url = {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29265568}, author = {Petrie, Matthew D. and Peters, Debra P. C. and Yao, Jin and John M. Blair and Burruss, Nathan D. and Scott. L. Collins and Derner, Justin D. and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Hendrickson, John R. and Sala, Osvaldo E. and Starks, Patrick J. and Steiner, Jean L.} } @article {KNZ001811, title = {Asymmetric responses of primary productivity to precipitation extremes: A synthesis of grassland precipitation manipulation experiments}, journal = {Global Change Biology}, volume = {23}, year = {2017}, month = {4376-4385}, abstract = {

Climatic changes are altering Earth\&$\#$39;s hydrological cycle, resulting in altered precipitation amounts, increased interannual variability of precipitation, and more frequent extreme precipitation events. These trends will likely continue into the future, having substantial impacts on net primary productivity (NPP) and associated ecosystem services such as food production and carbon sequestration. Frequently, experimental manipulations of precipitation have linked altered precipitation regimes to changes in NPP. Yet, findings have been diverse and substantial uncertainty still surrounds generalities describing patterns of ecosystem sensitivity to altered precipitation. Additionally, we do not know whether previously observed correlations between NPP and precipitation remain accurate when precipitation changes become extreme. We synthesized results from 83 case studies of experimental precipitation manipulations in grasslands worldwide. We used meta-analytical techniques to search for generalities and asymmetries of aboveground NPP (ANPP) and belowground NPP (BNPP) responses to both the direction and magnitude of precipitation change. Sensitivity (i.e., productivity response standardized by the amount of precipitation change) of BNPP was similar under precipitation additions and reductions, but ANPP was more sensitive to precipitation additions than reductions; this was especially evident in drier ecosystems. Additionally, overall relationships between the magnitude of productivity responses and the magnitude of precipitation change were saturating in form. The saturating form of this relationship was likely driven by ANPP responses to very extreme precipitation increases, although there were limited studies imposing extreme precipitation change, and there was considerable variation among experiments. This highlights the importance of incorporating gradients of manipulations, ranging from extreme drought to extreme precipitation increases into future climate change experiments. Additionally, policy and land management decisions related to global change scenarios should consider how ANPP and BNPP responses may differ, and that ecosystem responses to extreme events might not be predicted from relationships found under moderate environmental changes.

}, keywords = {LTER-KNZ}, doi = {10.1111/gcb.13706}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.13706}, author = {K.R. Wilcox and Shi, Zheng and Gherardi, Laureano A. and Lemoine, Nathan P. and Koerner, Sally E. and Hoover, David L. and Bork, Edward and Byrne, Kerry M. and Cahill, James and Scott. L. Collins and Evans, Sarah and Gilgen, Anna K. and Holub, Petr and Jiang, Lifen and Alan K. Knapp and LeCain, Daniel and Liang, Junyi and Garcia-Palacios, Pablo and Pe{\~n}uelas, Josep and Pockman, William T. and M.D. Smith and Sun, Shanghua and White, Shannon R. and Yahdjian, Laura and Zhu, Kai and Luo, Yiqi} }