Divergent coupling mechanism of precipitation on plant community multifunction across alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau

Miao Liu; Yang Li; Le Sun; Ziyin Du; Wencheng Li; Lin Zhang; Jinniu Wang; Ji Chen

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.1122140

Divergent coupling mechanism of precipitation on plant community multifunction across alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Jan 20:13:1122140. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1122140. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Miao Liu¹, Yang Li², Le Sun², Ziyin Du³, Wencheng Li^{2

4}, Lin Zhang², Jinniu Wang⁵, Ji Chen^{6

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ College of Grassland Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ School of Geographical Sciences, China West Normal University, Nanchong, China.
⁴ College of Resources and Environment, Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry University, Nyingchi, China.
⁵ Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China.
⁶ Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark.
⁷ Aarhus University Centre for Circular Bioeconomy, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark.
⁸ Climate Interdisciplinary Centre for Climate Change, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark.

Abstract

Introduction: It is essential to understand plant adaptive strategies on plant stoichiometric traits at the species level rather than at the community level under various environmental conditions across the Tibetan Plateau (TP).

Methods: Here, plant community function and edaphic and meteorological factors were collected at 111 sites along an extensive water-heat gradient during the peak growing season in 2015. Community-weighted mean trait (CWM) was introduced to illuminating dynamics of the functional trait at the community level.

Results: Our results indicated that plant functional traits, including CWM-leaf total carbon (CWM_LTC), CWM-leaf total nitrogen (CWM_LTN), and CWM-leaf total phosphorus (CWM_LTP), showed similar and comparatively marked increases from alpine meadow (AM) to alpine steppe (AS). Moreover, since the tightly coordinated variation among each plant functional trait of AM was higher than that of AS, a more stable coupling mechanism of these plant functional traits could be observed in AM under a long-term evolutionary habit. Specifically, there was higher annual mean precipitation (AMP) in AM than that in AS significantly (P < 0.01), and AMP was significantly correlated with soil moisture and soil total phosphorus in AM. Generally, our findings suggest that precipitation determines divergent coupling plant community function in both AS and AM.

Keywords: alpine meadow; alpine steppe; community-weighted mean trait; ecological stoichiometry; leaf functional traits; transect.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32271774, 41871040), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (2019QZKK0405), and the Joint Research Project of Three-River-Resource National Park Funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Qinghai Provincial People’s Government (LHZX-2020-08).