Long‐term aridity shapes grassland drought resistance and modulates the roles of plant diversity and functional composition

作者：Diana Bertuol‐Garcia, Liesbeth van den Brink, Michele Carbognani, Manjunatha H. Chandregowda, Amber C. Churchill, Daniela Cusack, Maren Dubbert, Jeffrey S. Dukes, Mary Ellyn DuPre, Nico Eisenhauer, T’ai G. W. Forte, Yann Hautier, Andy Hector, Hugh A. L. Henry, Anke Jentsch, Sally E. Koerner, Angelika Kübert, Emma Ladouceur, Daniel C. Laughlin, Grisel Longo, Alejandro Loydi, Akira Mori, Seth M. Munson, Uffe N. Nielsen, Timothy Ohlert, Gastón R. Oñatibia, Rafael Otfinowski, Meelis Pärtel, Gustavo B. Paterno, Josep Peñuelas, Pablo L. Peri, Alessandro Petraglia, J. Piñeiro, Sally A. Power, Yolanda Pueyo, William E. Rogers, Bráulio Almeida Santos, Melinda D. Smith, Andreas Stämpfli, Rachel J. Standish, Michelle Tedder, George R. Wheeler, Jennifer L. Williams, Michaela Zeiter, Nancy Shackelford · 发表于：Journal of Ecology · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1111/1365-2745.70384 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Ecosystem dynamics and resilience、Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Abstract Understanding the drivers of plant community stability is crucial for predicting ecosystem responses to extreme drought events. In grasslands, drought resistance supports the maintenance of key functions such as above‐ground primary productivity, making the identification of resistance drivers essential to guide management under climate change. Proposed factors contributing to grassland stability include multiple diversity facets, functional traits and long‐term climate, but most assessments focus on temporal invariability under historical disturbance regimes, leaving mechanisms of extreme drought resistance and their variation across climatic contexts relatively underexplored. Here, we analysed data from 54 grassland sites of the International Drought Experiment to examine the resistance of above‐ground net primary productivity to a short‐term (i.e. 1 year) extreme drought. We investigated the relative importance and joint influence of functional composition (i.e. community‐weighted means of leaf and root traits), plant diversity facets (taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic) and climate (aridity and rainfall variability) on drought resistance. We used structural equation models to disentangle direct, indirect, and moderating pathways linking these drivers to drought resistance. Long‐term aridity appeared as one of the most important drivers of grassland resistance to drought, with more arid sites showing lower resistance. Moreover, aridity impacted resistance thro...