Modest Experimental Warming Reduces Species Diversity and Biomass of Arthropods in a Tibetan Alpine Meadow

作者：Xiaoli Hu, Xinwei Wu, Shuang Xiang, Youjun Chen, Lin Jiang, Nico Eisenhauer, Peter B. Reich, Shucun Sun · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.70277 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Fire effects on ecosystems、Species Distribution and Climate Change

Climate warming is expected to contribute to the decline of arthropod species diversity and biomass around the world. However, direct experimental evidence is lacking. Here, we report on a field experiment documenting arthropod species diversity and biomass responses to passive simulated warming for six consecutive years in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau. The field warming experiment consisted of six large open-top chambers (15 × 15 × 2.5 m), with three chambers warmed and three non-warmed, resulting in mean temperature differences of 0.18°C and 0.57°C in the growing season and the non-growing season, respectively. Warming decreased arthropod species diversity by 39% and arthropod biomass by 18% during the experiment. Specifically, the richness of large-bodied species decreased, while small-bodied species were not significantly affected. Moreover, the abundance of small-bodied species increased, but that of large-bodied ones decreased, resulting in decreases in community size spectrum and community-weighted mean body size under warming. Results of structural equation model suggest that the decreases in arthropod species diversity (represented by species richness and community size spectrum) and biomass were primarily caused by a warming-induced shift from forb- to graminoid-dominated plant communities, which could be attributed to a warming-induced decrease in soil moisture. Moreover, the warming effect on arthropod species diversity and biomass was more pronounced i...