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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #332993
Title: Does an understanding of ecosystems responses to rainfall pulses improve predictions of responses of drylands to climate change?

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

Submitted to: Ecological Society of America Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/18/2016
Publication Date: 8/11/2016
Citation: Sala, O., Gherardi, L., Peters, D.C., Reichmann, L.G. 2016. Does an understanding of ecosystems responses to rainfall pulses improve predictions of responses of drylands to climate change [abstract]? Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting 2016. August 7-12, 2016, Fort Lauderdale, FL. IGN 9-2.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Drylands will experience more intense and frequent droughts and floods. Ten-year field experiments manipulating the amount and variability of precipitation suggest that we cannot predict responses of drylands to climate change based on pulse experimentation. Long-term drought experiments showed no effects on total productivity until the third year. Eight years were necessary to observe a collapse of grasses and the unexpected thriving of shrubs. The ultimate response of drylands to climate change depends on the interaction of sustained changes and rare phenomena, such as El Niño, that have the potential to tip systems into a different domainNovel ecosystems are often defined as no-analog communities consisting of new combinations of species that assemble under new abiotic conditions. In the Anthropocene, novel systems differ from the historical state as a result of human influences where self-organizational processes prevail to make these ecosystems unlikely to revert to their historical structure/function.