Delayed and altered post-fire recovery pathways of Mediterranean shrubland under 20-year drought manipulation
Liu, Daijun (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Zhang, Chao (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Ogaya Inurrigarro, Romà (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Estiarte, Marc (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Zhang, Xiwen (Guangdong University of Technology. School of Architecture and Urban Planning)
Pugh, Thomas A. M. (University of Birmingham. Birmingham Institute of Forest Research)
Peñuelas, Josep (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)

Data:	2022
Resum:	Increasing water deficits and severe droughts are expected to alter the dynamics of vegetation post-disturbance recovery by decreasing new recruitment and limiting growth in semi-arid Mediterranean ecosystems in future. However, which vegetation metrics will be shifted and how they respond over time are not clear, and the experimental evidence is still limited. Here we assessed the impacts of a long-term (20 years) experimental drought (−30% rainfall) on the pathways of vegetation metrics related to species richness, community composition and abundance dynamics for an early-successional Mediterranean shrubland. The results indicate that the pathways of vegetation metrics were differently affected by experimental drought. The abundance of Globularia alypum follows pathway 1 (altered mature state). Simpson diversity and abundance of Erica multiflora follow pathway 2 (delayed succession) while species richness, community abundance and shrub abundance follow pathway 3 (alternative stable state). There were no significances for the resilience to extremely dry years (the ratio between the performance after and before severe events) between control and drought treatment for all vegetation metric. But, their resilience for the metrics (except Simpson diversity) to extremely dry years in 2016-17 were significantly lower than that of 2001 and of 2006-07, possibly caused by the severe water deficits in 2016-17 at mature successional stage. Principal component analysis (PCA) shows that the first two principal components explained 72. 3 % of the variance in vegetation metrics. The first axis was mainly related to the changes in community abundance, shrub abundance and species richness while the second axis was related to Simpson diversity and abundance of G. alypum and E. multiflora. Principal component scores along PC1 between control and drought treatment were significantly decreased by long-term experimental drought, but the scores along PC2 were not affected. Further research should focus on successional pathways in more water-deficit conditions in Mediterranean ecosystems and the consequences of changes in vegetation recovery pathways on ecosystem functions such as biomass accumulation and soil properties.
Ajuts:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2019-110521GB-I00 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-1005 European Commission 758873
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Succession pathways ; Climate change ; Mediterranean shrublands ; Long-term drought experiment ; Species diversity ; Community composition ; Abundance dynamics ; Vegetation metric space
Publicat a:	Forest ecology and management, Vol. 506 (February 2022) , art. 119970, ISSN 0378-1127

DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2021.119970

10 p, 5.0 MB

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