The effects of short-term warming on plant diversity, productivity, and their relationship in alpine grasslands

作者：Mingxue Xiang, Jianghao Cheng, Yanjie Zhang, Tao Ma, Panpan Ma, Ruikang Luo, Huanyu Zhou, Zepeng Liang, Xuhui Ding, Jun Wu · 发表于：Global Ecology and Conservation · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.gecco.2025.e03880 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Rangeland and Wildlife Management、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Botany and Plant Ecology Studies

Biodiversity and productivity, which are key determinants of ecosystem services, exhibit significant variation under global change. However, the effects of short-term warming on plant community biomass, species diversity, and their relationships (biodiversity-productivity relationship, BPR) in alpine meadows are not well understood. We conducted a continuous three-year warming experiment in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau using open-top chambers. Our results showed that warming significantly altered community species diversity. One-year-warming significantly increased the species richness, Shannon index, and Simpson index in comparison to the control. Three-year-warming significantly decreased the species richness compared to the control. This was attributed to the modification of plant community structure by warming, which enhanced species turnover and ultimately resulted in reduced species diversity. A negative relationship of aboveground biomass (AGB) and species turnover was observed under warming conditions. The regression analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) further confirmed that warming exacerbates the negative influence of species turnover (beta-diversity) on AGB. Meanwhile, the results from random forest analysis and SEM indicated that warming alleviates the negative impact of available nitrogen on the Shannon diversity and AGB. Thus, short-term warming enhanced the species turnover within plant communities, thereby exacerbating the negative influ...