Ecosystem‐level decoupling in response to reduced precipitation frequency and degradation in steppe grassland

作者：Tianxue Yang, Xiaoyue Zhong, Junda Chen, Uffe N. Nielsen, Raúl Ochoa‐Hueso, Yanan Qu, Yushu Sui, Weifeng Gao, Wei Sun · 发表于：Functional Ecology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1111/1365-2435.14425 · 被引用次数：21 · 研究领域：Nematode management and characterization studies、Plant and animal studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Abstract Grasslands across arid and semi‐arid regions are predicted to experience reductions in precipitation frequency. Besides, grassland degradation has become a serious problem in many of these areas. Despite increasing evidence suggesting compound effects of these synchronous alterations on biotic and abiotic ecosystem constituents, we still do not know how they will impact the coupling among ecosystem constituents and its consequences on ecosystem functioning. Here, we assessed the effects of decreased precipitation frequency and grassland degradation on ecosystem coupling, quantified based on the mean strength of pairwise correlations among multispecies communities and their physicochemical environment, individual functions and ecosystem multifunctionality, and reported their relationships within a mechanistic plant–nematode–micro‐organism–soil interactions framework. Decreased precipitation frequency led to poorly coupled ecosystems, and reduced aboveground plant biomass, soil water content, soil nutrient levels, soil biota abundance and multifunctionality. By contrast, belowground plant biomass and soil potential enzyme activities increased under decreased precipitation frequency treatment. Severe degradation resulted in decoupled ecosystems and suppressed most of individual functions and multifunctionality. Using structural equation modelling, we showed that coupling had a strong direct positive effect on multifunctionality (standardized total effect: 0.74), while m...