• Energy Research

AbstractAimClimate warming and biodiversity loss both alter plant productivity, yet we lack an understanding of how biodiversity regulates the responses of ecosystems to warming. In this study, we examine how plant diversity regulates the responses of grassland productivity to experimental warming using meta‐analytic techniques.LocationGlobal.Major taxa studiedGrassland ecosystems.MethodsOur meta‐analysis is based on warming responses of 40 different plant communities obtained from 20 independent studies on grasslands across five continents.ResultsOur results show that plant diversity and its responses to warming were the most important factors regulating the warming effects on plant productivity, among all the factors considered (plant diversity, climate and experimental settings). Specifically, warming increased plant productivity when plant diversity (indicated by effective number of species) in grasslands was lower than 10, whereas warming decreased plant productivity when plant diversity was greater than 10. Moreover, the structural equation modelling showed that the magnitude of warming enhanced plant productivity by increasing the performance of dominant plant species in grasslands of diversity lower than 10. The negative effects of warming on productivity in grasslands with plant diversity greater than 10 were partly explained by diversity‐induced decline in plant dominance.Main conclusionsOur findings suggest that the positive or negative effect of warming on grassland productivity depends on how biodiverse a grassland is. This may mainly be due to differences in how warming may affect plant dominance and subsequent shifts in interspecific interactions in grasslands of different plant diversity levels.

Aim: Climate warming and biodiversity loss both alter plant productivity, yet we lack an understanding of how biodiversity regulates the responses of ecosystems to warming. In this study, we examine how plant diversity regulates the responses of grassland productivity to experimental warming using meta-analytic techniques. Location: Global Major taxa studied: Grassland ecosystems Methods: Our meta-analysis is based on warming responses of 40 different plant communities obtained from 20 independent studies on grasslands across five continents. Results: Our results show that plant diversity and its responses to warming were the most important factors regulating the warming effects on plant productivity, among all the factors considered (plant diversity, climate and experimental settings). Specifically, warming increased plant productivity when plant diversity (indicated by effective number of species) in grasslands was lesser than 10, whereas warming decreased plant productivity when plant diversity was greater than 10. Moreover, the structural equation modelling showed that the magnitude of warming enhanced plant productivity by increasing the performance of dominant plant species in grasslands of diversity lesser than 10. The negative effects of warming on productivity in grasslands with plant diversity greater than 10 were partly explained by diversity-induced decline in plant dominance. Main Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the positive or negative effect of warming on grassland productivity depends on how biodiverse a grassland is. This could mainly owe to differences in how warming may affect plant dominance and subsequent shifts in interspecific interactions in grasslands of different plant diversity levels.

Summary Evolutionary history shapes the interspecific relatedness and intraspecific variation, which has a profound influence on plant functional traits and productivity. However, it is far from clear how the phylogenetic relatedness among species and intraspecific variation could contribute to the observed variance in plant biomass responses to climate warming. We compiled a dataset with 284 species from warming experiments to explore the relative importance of phylogenetic, intraspecific, experimental and ecological factors to warming effects on plant biomass, using phylogenetic eigenvector regression and variance decomposition. Our results showed that phylogenetic relatedness could account for about half the total variance in biomass responses to warming, which were correlated with leaf economic traits at the family level but not at species level. The intraspecific variation contributed to approximately one‐third of the variance, whereas the experimental design and ecological characteristics only explained 7–17%. These results suggest that intrinsic factors (evolutionary history) play more important roles than extrinsic factors (experimental treatment and environment) in determining the responses of plant biomass to warming at the global scale. This highlights the urgent need for land surface models to include evolutionary aspects in predicting ecosystem functions under climate change.

Maintaining plant productivity and crop yield in a warming world requires local adaptation to new environment and selection of high-yield cultivars, which both depend on the genetically-based intraspecific differences in the plant response to warming (referred to as "genetically-based intraspecific responses"). However, how the genetically-based intraspecific responses mediate warming effects on plants remains unclear, especially at the global scale. Here, a dataset was compiled from 118 common-garden experiments to examine the responses of plant growth, productivity, and crop yield to warming among different ecotypes/genotypes/cultivars. Our results showed that the genetically-based intraspecific responses on average accounted for 34.7 % of the total variance in the warming responses across all the studies but with large variability (2 %-77 %). The intraspecific responses of plant productivity and crop yield were larger than those of organ level traits and biomass allocation, suggesting that plant growth was mainly achieved by iterating the relatively invariant terminal modules (e.g., leaves). The warming-induced changes in intraspecific variability of aboveground biomass were larger in woody plants, non-leguminous herbs, perennial herbs and noncrops than those in nonwoody, leguminous, annual and crop ones, respectively, indicating the potential important role of plant longevity in mediating the change in intraspecific variability. Moreover, larger intraspecific responses reduced the consistence of relative performance between control and warming treatments for both plant productivity and crop yield. These results highlight the unneglectable role of genetically-based intraspecific differences in plant responses to warming, indicating the difficulty of maintaining high crop yield and tree productivity under global climate change, and posing a grave threat to the food security and wood supply in the near future.

AbstractMercury (Hg), a potent neurotoxin posing risks to human health, is cycled through vegetation uptake, which is susceptible to climate change impacts. However, the extent and pattern of these impacts are largely unknown, obstructing predictions of Hg’s fate in terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we evaluate the effects of climate change on vegetation elemental Hg [Hg(0)] uptake using a state-of-the-art global terrestrial Hg model (CLM5-Hg) that incorporates plant physiology. In a business-as-usual scenario, the terrestrial Hg(0) sink is predicted to decrease by 1870 Mg yr−1 in 2100, that is ~60% lower than the present-day condition. We find a potential decoupling between the trends of CO2 assimilation and Hg(0) uptake process by vegetation in the 21st century, caused by the decreased stomatal conductance with increasing CO2. This implies a substantial influx of Hg into aquatic ecosystems, posing an elevated threat that warrants consideration during the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Minamata Convention.