Compound hydroclimatic extremes in a semi‐arid grassland: Drought, deluge, and the carbon cycle

作者：David L. Hoover, Olivia L. Hajek, Melinda D. Smith, Kate Wilkins, Ingrid J. Slette, Alan K. Knapp · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.16081 · 被引用次数：90 · 研究领域：Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Climate variability and models、Tree-ring climate responses

Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events including droughts and large precipitation events or "deluges." While many studies have focused on the ecological impacts of individual events (e.g., a heat wave), there is growing recognition that when extreme events co-occur as compound extremes, (e.g., a heatwave during a drought), the additive effects on ecosystems are often greater than either extreme alone. In this study, we assessed a unique type of extreme-a contrasting compound extreme-where the extremes may have offsetting, rather than additive ecological effects, by examining how a deluge during a drought impacts productivity and carbon cycling in a semi-arid grassland. The experiment consisted of four treatments: a control (average precipitation), an extreme drought (<5th percentile), an extreme drought interrupted by a single deluge (>95th percentile), or an extreme drought interrupted by the equivalent amount of precipitation added in several smaller events. We highlight three key results. First, extreme drought resulted in early senescence, reduced carbon uptake, and a decline in net primary productivity relative to the control treatment. Second, the deluge imposed during extreme drought stimulated carbon fluxes and plant growth well above the levels of both the control and the drought treatment with several additional smaller rainfall events, emphasizing the importance of precipitation amount, event size, and timing. Third, w...