Consequences of Cool-Season Drought-Induced Plant Mortality to Chihuahuan Desert Grassland Ecosystem and Soil Respiration Dynamics

Ecosystems

Volumn 16, Issue 7, 2013, Pages 1178-1191

  Hamerlynck, Erik P ^a   Scott, Russell L ^a   Barron Gafford, Greg A ^b  

^a SOUTHWEST WATERSHED RESEARCH CENTER   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA   (United States)

Author keywords

climate change; ecosystem respiration; gross ecosystem photosynthesis; net ecosystem carbon dioxide exchange; seasonal precipitation; soil moisture; southern oscillation El Ni o

Indexed keywords

CLIMATE CHANGE; DESERT; DROUGHT; ECOSYSTEM; GRASSLAND; MORTALITY; PHOTOSYNTHESIS; PLANT; RAINFALL; SOIL MOISTURE; SOIL RESPIRATION; SUMMER;

CHIHUAHUAN DESERT;

EID: 84885228662     PISSN: 14329840     EISSN: 14350629     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10021-013-9675-y     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Adams DK, Comrie AC. 1997. The North American monsoon. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 78: 2197-213.
2. Austin AT, Vivanco L. 2006. Plant litter decomposition in a semi-arid ecosystem controlled by photodegradation. Nature 442: 555-8.
3. Bachman S, Heisler-White JL, Pendall E, Williams DG, Morgan JA, Newcomb J. 2010. Elevated carbon dioxide alters impacts of precipitation pulses on ecosystem photosynthesis and respiration in a semi-arid grassland. Oecologia 162: 791-802.
4. Baldocchi D, Tang J, Xu L. 2006. How switches and lags in biophysical regulators affect spatial-temporal variation of soil respiration in an oak-grass savanna. J Geophys Res 111: G02008.
5. 2 efflux at diel, seasonal, and annual scales. J Geophys Res Biogeosci 116: G010223.
6. Breshears DD, Myers OB, Meyer CW, Barnes FJ, Zou CB, Allen CD, McDowell NG, Pockman WT. 2009. Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought: insights from a decade of plant water-potential measurements. Front Ecol Environ 7: 185-9.
7. Cable DR. 1975. Influence of precipitation on perennial grass production in the semidesert southwest. Ecology 56: 981-6.
8. Cable JM, Ogle K, Williams DG, Weltzin JF, Huxman TE. 2008. Soil texture drives responses of soil respiration to precipitation pulses in the Sonoran Desert: implications for climate change. Ecosystems 11: 961-79.
9. Cable JM, Ogle K, Lucas RW, Huxman TE, Loik ME, Smith SD, Tissue DT, Ewers BE, Pendall E, Welker JM, Charlet TN, Cleary M, Griffith A, Nowak RS, Rogers M, Steltzer H, Sullivan PF, van Gestel NC. 2011. The temperature response of soil respiration in deserts: a seven desert synthesis. Biogeochemisty 103: 71-90.
10. Christensen JH, Hewitson B. 2007. Regional climate projections. In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Eds. Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p 487-940.
11. Collins SL, Fargione JE, Crenshaw CL, Nonaka E, Elliot JR, Xia Y, Pockman WT. 2009. Rapid plant community responses during the summer monsoon to nighttime warming in northern Chihuahuan desert grassland. J Arid Environ 74: 611-17.
12. Cox JR, Ruyle GB, Roundy BA. 1990. Lehmann lovegrass in southeastern Arizona: biomass production and disappearance. J Range Manag 43: 367-72.
13. Diffenbach NS, Pal JS, Trapp RJ, Giorgi F. 2005. Fine-scale processes regulate the response of extreme events to global climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102: 15774-8.
14. Dragoni D, Schmid HP, Grimmond CSB, Loescher HW. 2007. Uncertainty of annual net ecosystem productivity estimated using eddy covariance flux measurements. J Geophys Res 112: D17102.
15. Easterling DR, Meehl GA, Parmesan C, Changnon SA, Karl TR, Mearns LO. 2000a. Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science 289: 2068-74.
16. Easterling DR, Evans JL, Groisman PY, Karl TR, Kunkel KE, Ambenje P. 2000b. Observed variability and trends in extreme climate events: a brief review. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 81: 417-25.
17. Fay PA, Kaufman D, Nippert J, Carlisle J, Harper C. 2008. Changes in grassland ecosystem function due to extreme rainfall events: implications of responses to climate change. Glob Change Biol 14: 1600-8.
18. Fernandez DP, Neff JC, Belnap J, Reynolds RL. 2006. Soil respiration in the cold desert environment of the Colorado Plateau (USA): abiotic regulators and thresholds. Biogeochemistry 78: 247-65.
19. Flanagan LB, Johnson BG. 2005. Interacting effects of temperature, soil moisture and plant biomass production on ecosystem respiration in a northern temperate grassland. Agric For Meteorol 130: 237-53.
20. Flanagan LB, Wever LA, Carlson PJ. 2002. Seasonal and interannual variation in carbon dioxide exchange and carbon balance in a northern temperate grassland. Glob Change Biol 8: 599-615.
21. Frank AB, Liebig MA, Hanson JD. 2002. Soil carbon dioxide fluxes in northern semiarid grasslands. Soil Biol Biochem 34: 1235-41.
22. Hamerlynck EP, Scott RL, Moran MS, Keefer TO, Huxman TE. 2010. Growing season ecosystem- and leaf-level gas exchange of an exotic and native semiarid bunchgrass. Oecologia 163: 561-70.
23. Hamerlynck EP, Scott RL, Stone JJ. 2012a. Soil moisture and ecosystem function responses of desert grassland varying in vegetative cover to a saturating precipitation pulse. Ecohydrology 5: 297-305. doi: 10. 1002/eco. 128.
24. Hamerlynck EP, Scott RL, Barron-Gafford GA, Cavanaugh ML, Moran MS, Huxman TE. 2012b. Cool-season whole-plant gas exchange of exotic and native semiarid bunchgrasses. Plant Ecol 213: 1229-39.
25. Heisler-White JL, Blair JM, Kelly EF, Harmoney K, Knapp AK. 2008. Contingent productivity response to more extreme rainfall regimes across a grassland biome. Glob Change Biol 15: 2894-904.
26. Hu Z, Yu G, Fu Y, Sun X, Li Y, Shi P, Wang Y, Zheng Z. 2008. Effects of vegetation control on ecosystem water use efficiency within and among four grassland ecosystems in China. Glob Change Biol 14: 1609-19.
27. Keefer TO, Moran MS, Paige GB. 2008. Long-term meteorological and soil hydrology database, Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, Arizona, United States. Water Resources Research 44: W05S07.
28. 2 flux from a sub-humid grassland: effect of fire and fire history. Ecol Appl 8: 760-70.
29. Lambrecht SC, Shattuck AK, Loik ME. 2007. Combined drought and episodic freezing effects on seedlings of low- and high-elevation subspecies of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata). Physiol Plant 130: 207-17.
30. Lasslop G, Reichstein M, Papale D, Richardson A, Arneth A, Barr A, Stoy P, Wolfhart G. 2010. Separation of net ecosystem exchange into assimilation and respiration using a light response curve approach: critical issues and global evaluation. Glob Change Biol 16: 187-208.
31. Liu W, Zhang Z, Wan S. 2009. Predominant role of water in regulating soil and microbial respiration and the responses to climate change in semiarid grassland. Glob Change Biol 15: 184-95.
32. Loik ME, Breshears DD, Lauenroth WK, Belnap J. 2004. A multi-scale perspective of water pulses in dryland ecosytems: climatology and ecohydrology of the western USA. Oecolgia 141: 269-81.
33. McAfee SA, Russell JL. 2008. Impact of the Northern Annular Mode on spring climate in the western Unites States. Geophys Res Lett 35: L17701.
34. McAuliffe JR, Hamerlynck EP. 2010. Perennial plant mortality in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts in response to severe, multi-year drought. J Arid Environ 74: 885-96.
35. McDowell N, Pockman WT, Allen CD, Breshears DD, Cobb N, Kolb T, Plaut J, Sperry J, West A, Williams DG, Yepez EA. 2008. Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while other succumb to drought? New Phytol 178: 719-39.
36. McKee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist J. 1993. The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scale. In: Proceedings of the eighth conference on applied climatology, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA, USA. pp 179-184.
37. Mederios JS, Pockman WT. 2011. Drought increases freezing tolerance of both leaves and xylem of Larrea tridentata. Plant, Cell Environ 34: 43-51.
38. Moran MS, Scott RL, Hamerlynck EP, Green KN, Emmerich WE, Holifield-Collins CD. 2009. Evaporative response to Lehmann lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana) invasion in a semiarid watershed. Agric For Meteorol 149: 2133-42.
39. Muldavin EH, Moore DI, Collins SL, Wetherill KR, Lightfoot DC. 2008. Aboveground net primary production dynamics in a northern Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem. Oecologia 155: 123-32.
40. Neilson RP. 1987. Biotic regionalization and climatic controls in western North America. Vegetatio 70: 135-47.
41. NOAA National Climatic Data Center. 2012. State of the climate: global analysis for October, 2012. http://www. ncdc. noaa. gov/sotc/global/. Accessed 10 Dec 2012.
42. 2 effects and soil water feedbacks on soil respiration components in a Colorado grassland. Glob Biogeochem Cycles 17: 1046.
43. Pennington DD, Collins SL. 2007. Response of an aridland ecosystem to interannual climate variability and prolonged drought. Landsc Ecol 22: 897-910.
44. Pockman WT, Sperry JS. 1997. Freezing-induced xylem cavitation and the northern limit of Larrea tridentata. Oecologia 109: 19-27.
45. Potts DL, Huxman TE, Cable JM, English NB, Ignace DD, Eilts JA, Mason MJ, Weltzin JF, Williams DG. 2006. Antecedent moisture and seasonal precipitation influence the response of canopy-scale carbon and water exchange to rainfall pulses in a semi-arid grassland. New Phytol 170: 849-60.
46. Reichstein M, Falge E, Baldocchi D, Papale D, Aubinet M, Berbigier P, Bernhofer C, Buchman N, Gilmanov T, Granier A, Grunwald T, Havrankova K, Ilvesniemi H, Janous D, Knohl A, Laurila T, Lohila A, Loustau D, Matteucci G, Meyers T, Miglietta F, Ourcival JM, Pumpanen J, Rambal S, Rotenberg E, Sanz M, Tenhunen J, Seufert G, Vaccari F, Vesla T, Yakir D, Valentini R. 2005. On the separation of net ecosystem exchange into assimilation and ecosystem respiration. Glob Change Biol 11: 1142-439.
47. 2 flux record. Agric For Meteorol 147: 199-208.
48. Scott RL, Shuttleworth WJ, Keefer TO, Warrick AW. 2000. Modeling multiyear observations of soil moisture recharge in the semiarid American southwest. Water Resour Res 36: 2233-47.
49. Scott RL, Jenerette GD, Potts DL, Huxman TE. 2009. Effects of seasonal drought on net carbon dioxide exchange from a woody-plant encroached semiarid grassland. J Geophys Res 114: G04004.
50. Scott RL, Hamerlynck EP, Jenerette GD, Moran MS, Barron-Gafford GA. 2010. Carbon dioxide exchange in semidesert grassland through drought-induced vegetation change. J Geophys Res 115: G030326.
51. Scott RL, Serrano-Ortiz P, Domingo F, Hamerlynck EP, Kowalski AP. 2012. Commonalities of carbon dioxide exchange in semiarid regions with monsoon and Mediterranean climates. J Arid Environ 84: 71-9.
52. Seager R, Ting M, Held I, Kushnir Y, Lu J, Vecchi G, Huang HP, Harnik N, Leetmaa A, Ngar-Cheung L, Li C, Velez J, Naik N. 2007. Model projections of an imminent transition to a more arid climate in Southwestern North America. Science 316: 1181-4.
53. Seastedt TR, Knapp AK. 1993. Consequences of non-equilibrium resource availability across multiple time scales: the transient maxima hypothesis. Am Nat 141: 621-33.
54. Seyfried MS, Schwinning S, Walvoord MA, Pockman WT, Newman BD, Jackson RB, Phillips FM. 2005. Ecohydrological control of deep drainage in arid and semiarid regions. Ecology 86: 277-87.
55. Sheppard PR, Comrie AC, Packin GD, Angersbach K, Huges MK. 2002. The climate of the US Southwest. Clim Res 21: 219-38.
56. Smith SD, Monson RK, Anderson JE. 1997. Physiological ecology of North American desert plants. Berlin: Springer.
57. 2 flux in a Sonoran Desert ecosystem. Glob Change Biol 13: 426-36.
58. Tang JW, Baldocchi DD, Xu L. 2005. Tree photosynthesis modulates soil respiration on a diurnal time scale. Glob Change Biol 11: 1298-304.
59. Thomey ML, Collins SL, Vargas R, Johnson JE, Brown RF, Natvig DO, Friggens MT. 2011. Effect of precipitation variability on net primary production and soil respiration in a Chihuahuan Desert grassland. Glob Change Biol 17: 1505-15.
60. Xu L, Baldocchi DD, Tang J. 2004. How soil moisture, rain pulses, and growth alter the response of ecosystem respiration to temperature. Glob Biogeochem Cycles 18: GB4002.
61. Zar JH. 1974. Biostatistical analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. p 215.
62. Zhou X, Talley M, Luo Y. 2009. Biomass, litter and soil respiration along a precipitation gradient in Southern Great Plains, USA. Ecosystems 12: 1369-80.