Contrasting response of coexisting plant's water-use patterns to experimental precipitation manipulation in an alpine grassland community of Qinghai Lake watershed, China.

Autor: Huawu Wu, Jing Li, Xiao-Yan Li, Bin He, Jinzhao Liu, Zhiyun Jiang, Cicheng Zhang
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2018
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 13, Iss 4, p e0194242 (2018)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194242
Popis: Understanding species-specific changes in water-use patterns under recent climate scenarios is necessary to predict accurately the responses of seasonally dry ecosystems to future climate. In this study, we conducted a precipitation manipulation experiment to investigate the changes in water-use patterns of two coexisting species (Achnatherum splendens and Allium tanguticum) to alterations in soil water content (SWC) resulting from increased and decreased rainfall treatments. The results showed that the leaf water potential (Ψ) of A. splendens and A. tanguticum responded to changes in shallow and middle SWC at both the control and treatment plots. However, A. splendens proportionally extracted water from the shallow soil layer (0-10cm) when it was available but shifted to absorbing deep soil water (30-60 cm) during drought. By contrast, the A. tanguticum did not differ significantly in uptake depth between treatment and control plots but entirely depended on water from shallow soil layers. The flexible water-use patterns of A.splendens may be a key factor facilitating its dominance and it better acclimates the recent climate change in the alpine grassland community around Qinghai Lake.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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