Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring
Climate change is predicted to result in altered precipitation patterns, which may reshape many grassland ecosystems. Rainfall is expected to change in a number of different ways, ranging from periods of prolonged drought to extreme precipitation events, yet there are few community wide studies to a...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016-10-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Plant Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpls.2016.01468/full |
| _version_ | 1811302832156966912 |
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| author | Marcel Torode Marcel Torode Kirk Lee Barnett Sarah Louise Facey Uffe Nielsen Sally Power Scott Nicholas Johnson |
| author_facet | Marcel Torode Marcel Torode Kirk Lee Barnett Sarah Louise Facey Uffe Nielsen Sally Power Scott Nicholas Johnson |
| author_sort | Marcel Torode |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Climate change is predicted to result in altered precipitation patterns, which may reshape many grassland ecosystems. Rainfall is expected to change in a number of different ways, ranging from periods of prolonged drought to extreme precipitation events, yet there are few community wide studies to accurately simulate future changes. We aimed to test how aboveground and belowground grassland invertebrate populations were affected by contrasting future rainfall scenarios. We subjected a grassland community to potential future rainfall scenarios including ambient, increased amount (+50% of ambient), reduced amount (-50% of ambient), reduced frequency (no water for 21 days, followed by the total ambient rainfall applied in a single application) and summer drought (no rainfall for 13 weeks during the growing season). During Austral spring (September 2015), we sampled aboveground invertebrates, belowground macro invertebrates and nematodes. Aboveground communities showed a significant response to altered rainfall regime with the greatest effects observed in summer drought plots. This was mostly due to a large increase in sucking herbivores (658% higher than ambient plots). Plots experiencing summer droughts also had higher populations of parasitoids, chewing herbivores and detritivores. These plots had 92% more plant biomass suggesting that primary productivity increased rapidly following the end of the summer drought five months earlier. We interpret these results as supporting the plant vigour hypothesis (i.e. that rapid plant growth is beneficial aboveground invertebrates). While belowground invertebrates were less responsive to altered precipitation, we observed a number of correlations between the abundances of above- and belowground invertebrate groups under ambient rainfall that dissipated under altered rainfall regimes. Mechanisms underpinning these associations, and reasons for them to become decoupled under altered precipitation regimes (we term this ‘climatic decoupling’), remain speculative, but they provide the basis for formulating hypotheses and future work. In conclusion, we predict that shifts in rainfall patterns, especially summer drought, will likely have large, but probably short-term, impacts on grassland invertebrate communities. In particular, sucking herbivores show sensitivity to precipitation changes, which have the potential to cascade through the food chain and affect higher trophic levels. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T07:35:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e90c5ba7ea0541cc8e9efe45e0e992e8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-462X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T07:35:11Z |
| publishDate | 2016-10-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Plant Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-e90c5ba7ea0541cc8e9efe45e0e992e82022-12-22T02:56:11ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Plant Science1664-462X2016-10-01710.3389/fpls.2016.01468217942Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in springMarcel Torode0Marcel Torode1Kirk Lee Barnett2Sarah Louise Facey3Uffe Nielsen4Sally Power5Scott Nicholas Johnson6Western Sydney UniversityCardiff UniversityWestern Sydney UniversityWestern Sydney UniversityWestern Sydney UniversityWestern Sydney UniversityWestern Sydney UniversityClimate change is predicted to result in altered precipitation patterns, which may reshape many grassland ecosystems. Rainfall is expected to change in a number of different ways, ranging from periods of prolonged drought to extreme precipitation events, yet there are few community wide studies to accurately simulate future changes. We aimed to test how aboveground and belowground grassland invertebrate populations were affected by contrasting future rainfall scenarios. We subjected a grassland community to potential future rainfall scenarios including ambient, increased amount (+50% of ambient), reduced amount (-50% of ambient), reduced frequency (no water for 21 days, followed by the total ambient rainfall applied in a single application) and summer drought (no rainfall for 13 weeks during the growing season). During Austral spring (September 2015), we sampled aboveground invertebrates, belowground macro invertebrates and nematodes. Aboveground communities showed a significant response to altered rainfall regime with the greatest effects observed in summer drought plots. This was mostly due to a large increase in sucking herbivores (658% higher than ambient plots). Plots experiencing summer droughts also had higher populations of parasitoids, chewing herbivores and detritivores. These plots had 92% more plant biomass suggesting that primary productivity increased rapidly following the end of the summer drought five months earlier. We interpret these results as supporting the plant vigour hypothesis (i.e. that rapid plant growth is beneficial aboveground invertebrates). While belowground invertebrates were less responsive to altered precipitation, we observed a number of correlations between the abundances of above- and belowground invertebrate groups under ambient rainfall that dissipated under altered rainfall regimes. Mechanisms underpinning these associations, and reasons for them to become decoupled under altered precipitation regimes (we term this ‘climatic decoupling’), remain speculative, but they provide the basis for formulating hypotheses and future work. In conclusion, we predict that shifts in rainfall patterns, especially summer drought, will likely have large, but probably short-term, impacts on grassland invertebrate communities. In particular, sucking herbivores show sensitivity to precipitation changes, which have the potential to cascade through the food chain and affect higher trophic levels.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpls.2016.01468/fullArthropodsClimate Changesoilsaboveground-belowground interactionsmulti-trophic interactionsRainfall extremes |
| spellingShingle | Marcel Torode Marcel Torode Kirk Lee Barnett Sarah Louise Facey Uffe Nielsen Sally Power Scott Nicholas Johnson Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring Frontiers in Plant Science Arthropods Climate Change soils aboveground-belowground interactions multi-trophic interactions Rainfall extremes |
| title | Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring |
| title_full | Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring |
| title_fullStr | Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring |
| title_full_unstemmed | Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring |
| title_short | Altered precipitation impacts on above- and belowground grassland invertebrates: summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring |
| title_sort | altered precipitation impacts on above and belowground grassland invertebrates summer drought leads to outbreaks in spring |
| topic | Arthropods Climate Change soils aboveground-belowground interactions multi-trophic interactions Rainfall extremes |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpls.2016.01468/full |
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