Abstract
Purpose
Impacts of dryness stress (i.e., low soil moisture [SM] and high vapor pressure deficit [VPD]) on gross primary production (GPP) have received considerable attention in recent years, however, their biological mechanism still needs to be elucidated.
Methods
We decomposed GPP into canopy stomatal conductance (gs), ratio of intercellular to atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (Ci/Ca), and species composition and investigated the interaction of dryness stress, gs, Ci/Ca, and relative abundance of C4 plants (C4/(C3 + C4)) to determine how they regulate GPP along an aridity gradient in Inner Mongolia Plateau. We used biomass-weighted leaf carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopes to calculate canopy Ci/Ca and 18O enrichment in leaf tissue above source water (△18O), respectively.
Results
A positive relationship between 1/△18O and canopy gs demonstrated that 1/△18O was a reliable indicator for canopy gs. Soil moisture (SM) exhibited a positive effect on 1/△18O and Ci/Ca, while Ci/Ca decreased and C4/(C3 + C4) increased with increasing water vapor pressure (VPD). 1/△18O and C4/(C3 + C4) indirectly regulated GPP via Ci/Ca, and the effect of C4/(C3 + C4) on the variability in Ci/Ca was stronger than that of 1/△18O. Interaction between dryness stressors (SM and VPD) and vegetation properties (1/△18O, Ci/Ca, and C4/(C3 + C4)) captured 74.6% of the variability in GPP, indicating that spatial variability in GPP was determined overwhelmingly by indirect effects of dryness on biological processes.
Conclusions
Increasing relative abundance of C4 plants would effectively mitigate the negative effects of dryness stress on GPP.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the “Functional Trait database of terrestrial ecosystems in China (China_Traits)” for sharing all auxiliary plant and soil data. Ancillary meteorological data are available from China Meteorological Data Service Center (http://data.cma.cn/).
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41991234, 32001137).
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JW and XFW planned and designed the research. JW performed experiments and analyzed the data. The authors jointly wrote the manuscript. The authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Wang, J., Wen, X. Increasing relative abundance of C4 plants mitigates a dryness-stress effect on gross primary productivity along an aridity gradient in grassland ecosystems. Plant Soil 479, 371–387 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05529-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05529-8