Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems
Climate change models predict reduced summer precipitations for most European countries, including more frequent and extreme summer droughts. Rainout-shelters which intercept part of the natural precipitation provide an effective tool to investigate effects of different precipitation levels on biodi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2018-03-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Environmental Science |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00014/full |
| _version_ | 1818022056519794688 |
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| author | Dominika Kundel Dominika Kundel Svenja Meyer Herbert Birkhofer Andreas Fliessbach Paul Mäder Stefan Scheu Mark van Kleunen Mark van Kleunen Klaus Birkhofer |
| author_facet | Dominika Kundel Dominika Kundel Svenja Meyer Herbert Birkhofer Andreas Fliessbach Paul Mäder Stefan Scheu Mark van Kleunen Mark van Kleunen Klaus Birkhofer |
| author_sort | Dominika Kundel |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Climate change models predict reduced summer precipitations for most European countries, including more frequent and extreme summer droughts. Rainout-shelters which intercept part of the natural precipitation provide an effective tool to investigate effects of different precipitation levels on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In this study, we evaluate and describe in detail a fixed-location rainout-shelter (2.5 × 2.5 m) with partial interception of natural rainfall. We provide a complete parts list, a construction manual and detailed CAD drawings allowing to rebuild and use these shelters for rainfall manipulation studies. In addition, we describe a rainout-shelter control treatment giving the possibility to quantify and account for potential shelter artifacts. To test the rainout-shelters, we established the following three treatments each in eight winter wheat plots of the agricultural long-term farming system comparison trial DOK in Therwil (Switzerland): (1) A rainout-shelter with 65% interception of rainfall, (2) a rainout-shelter control without interception of rainfall, and (3) an ambient control. The rainout-shelter effectively excluded 64.9% of the ambient rainfall, which is very close to the a priori calculated exclusion of 65.1%. In comparison to the ambient control plots, gravimetric soil moisture decreased under the rainout-shelter by a maximum of 11.1 percentage points. Air temperature under the rainout-shelter differed little from the ambient control (−0.55°C in 1.2 m height and +0.19°C in 0.1 m height), whereas soil temperatures were slightly higher in periods of high ambient temperature (+1.02°C), but remained basically unaffected in periods of low ambient temperature (+0.14°C). A maximum edge effect of 0.75 m defined a sampling area of 1 × 1 m under the rainout-shelter. The rainout-shelters presented here, proved to sustain under heavy weather and they were well-suited to be used in agricultural fields where management operations require the removal of the rainout-shelters for management operations. Overall, the results confirmed the good performance of the presented rainout-shelters regarding rainout-shelter artifacts, predictable rain exclusion, and feasibility for experimental studies in agricultural fields. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-14T08:27:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b7f35376cafe4286ba207388eeeb1b19 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-665X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-14T08:27:21Z |
| publishDate | 2018-03-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Environmental Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-b7f35376cafe4286ba207388eeeb1b192022-12-22T02:04:01ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Environmental Science2296-665X2018-03-01610.3389/fenvs.2018.00014341133Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in AgroecosystemsDominika Kundel0Dominika Kundel1Svenja Meyer2Herbert Birkhofer3Andreas Fliessbach4Paul Mäder5Stefan Scheu6Mark van Kleunen7Mark van Kleunen8Klaus Birkhofer9Soil Sciences Department, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, SwitzerlandDepartment of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, GermanyAnimal Ecology, J.F. Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, GermanyProduct Development and Machine Elements, Faculty of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, GermanySoil Sciences Department, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, SwitzerlandSoil Sciences Department, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, SwitzerlandAnimal Ecology, J.F. Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, GermanyDepartment of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, GermanyZhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Taizhou, ChinaDepartment of Ecology, Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, GermanyClimate change models predict reduced summer precipitations for most European countries, including more frequent and extreme summer droughts. Rainout-shelters which intercept part of the natural precipitation provide an effective tool to investigate effects of different precipitation levels on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In this study, we evaluate and describe in detail a fixed-location rainout-shelter (2.5 × 2.5 m) with partial interception of natural rainfall. We provide a complete parts list, a construction manual and detailed CAD drawings allowing to rebuild and use these shelters for rainfall manipulation studies. In addition, we describe a rainout-shelter control treatment giving the possibility to quantify and account for potential shelter artifacts. To test the rainout-shelters, we established the following three treatments each in eight winter wheat plots of the agricultural long-term farming system comparison trial DOK in Therwil (Switzerland): (1) A rainout-shelter with 65% interception of rainfall, (2) a rainout-shelter control without interception of rainfall, and (3) an ambient control. The rainout-shelter effectively excluded 64.9% of the ambient rainfall, which is very close to the a priori calculated exclusion of 65.1%. In comparison to the ambient control plots, gravimetric soil moisture decreased under the rainout-shelter by a maximum of 11.1 percentage points. Air temperature under the rainout-shelter differed little from the ambient control (−0.55°C in 1.2 m height and +0.19°C in 0.1 m height), whereas soil temperatures were slightly higher in periods of high ambient temperature (+1.02°C), but remained basically unaffected in periods of low ambient temperature (+0.14°C). A maximum edge effect of 0.75 m defined a sampling area of 1 × 1 m under the rainout-shelter. The rainout-shelters presented here, proved to sustain under heavy weather and they were well-suited to be used in agricultural fields where management operations require the removal of the rainout-shelters for management operations. Overall, the results confirmed the good performance of the presented rainout-shelters regarding rainout-shelter artifacts, predictable rain exclusion, and feasibility for experimental studies in agricultural fields.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00014/fullrainout-shelter designsummer droughtclimate changeprecipitationwheatCAD drawings |
| spellingShingle | Dominika Kundel Dominika Kundel Svenja Meyer Herbert Birkhofer Andreas Fliessbach Paul Mäder Stefan Scheu Mark van Kleunen Mark van Kleunen Klaus Birkhofer Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems Frontiers in Environmental Science rainout-shelter design summer drought climate change precipitation wheat CAD drawings |
| title | Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems |
| title_full | Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems |
| title_fullStr | Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems |
| title_full_unstemmed | Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems |
| title_short | Design and Manual to Construct Rainout-Shelters for Climate Change Experiments in Agroecosystems |
| title_sort | design and manual to construct rainout shelters for climate change experiments in agroecosystems |
| topic | rainout-shelter design summer drought climate change precipitation wheat CAD drawings |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00014/full |
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