Intra- and interannual dynamics of grassland community phylogenetic structure are influenced by meteorological conditions before the growing season

Lei Dong; Ying Zheng; Jian Wang; Jinrong Li; Zhiyong Li; Jinghui Zhang; Lixin Wang; Bailing Miao; Cunzhu Liang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.870526

Intra- and interannual dynamics of grassland community phylogenetic structure are influenced by meteorological conditions before the growing season

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Sep 23:13:870526. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.870526. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Lei Dong^{1

2}, Ying Zheng^{1

2}, Jian Wang^{1

2}, Jinrong Li^{1

2}, Zhiyong Li³, Jinghui Zhang³, Lixin Wang³, Bailing Miao⁴, Cunzhu Liang³

Affiliations

¹ Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco-hydrology National Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China.
² Institute of Water Resources for Pastoral Areas, Ministry of Water Resources, Hohhot, China.
³ School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.
⁴ Meteorological Research Institute of Inner Mongolia, Inner Mongolia Meteorological Service, Hohhot, China.

Abstract

The impact of global climate change on ecosystem structure has attracted much attention from researchers. However, how climate change and meteorological conditions influence community phylogenetic structure remains poorly understood. In this research, we quantified the responses of grassland communities' phylogenetic structure to long- and short-term meteorological conditions in Inner Mongolia, China. The net relatedness index (NRI) was used to characterize phylogenetic structure, and the relationship between the NRI and climate data was analyzed to understand the dynamics of community phylogenetic structure and its relationship with extreme meteorological events. Furthermore, multiple linear regression and structural equation models (SEMs) were used to quantify the relative contributions of meteorological factors before and during the current growing season to short-term changes in community phylogenetic structure. In addition, we evaluated the effect of long-term meteorological factors on yearly NRI anomalies with classification and regression trees (CARTs). We found that 1) the degree of phylogenetic clustering of the community is relatively low in the peak growing season, when habitat filtering is relatively weak and competition is fiercer. 2) Extreme meteorological conditions (i.e., drought and cold) may change community phylogenetic structure and indirectly reduce the degree of phylogenetic clustering by reducing the proportion of dominant perennial grasses. 3) Meteorological conditions before the growing season rather than during the current growing season explain more variation in the NRI and interannual NRI anomalies. Our results may provide useful information for understanding grassland community species assembly and how climate change affects biodiversity.

Keywords: Inner Mongolia; community phylogenetic structure; extreme climate; interspecies competition; intra-annual dynamics; net relatedness index; steppe.