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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #336581
Title: Grassland responses to precipitation extremes

Author
item SALA, OSVALDO - Arizona State University
item GHERARDI, LAUREANO - Arizona State University
item Peters, Debra
item REICHMANN, LARA - University Of Texas At Austin

Submitted to: Ecological Society of America (ESA)
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/28/2016
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Grassland ecosystems are naturally subjected to periods of prolonged drought and sequences of wet years. Climate change is expected to enhance the magnitude and frequency of extreme events at the intraannual and multiyear scales. Are grassland responses to extreme precipitation simply a response to the amount of precipitation received? Or, are there lags in the response to extreme precipitation? If lags are important, then state of ecosystems will result from both the severity of the extreme climatic event and its duration. Furthermore, if lags do exist, are they symmetrical? Are lags of extreme drought similar but of opposite sign than lags of wet years. Are lags to respond to an extreme event symmetrical to lags to recover from an extreme event? Finally, what are the echanisms responsible for the occurrence of lags? Here, we synthesize a broad range of studies ranging from manipulative experiments to observations in grasslands located in arid, semiarid and mesic regions. Analyses of published results strongly suggest the existence of lags. They occur as a response to prolonged drought as well as wet conditions. In some cases, lags are symmetrical with similar effects of prolonged drought than prolonged wet conditions. Manipulative experiments indicate that lags result from structural and demographic constraints that limit ecosystem ability to use resources. We further explore the generality of these findings.