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Ecological effects of extreme drought on Californian herbaceous plant communities
Corresponding Author
Stella M. Copeland
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorSusan P. Harrison
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Search for more papers by this authorAndrew M. Latimer
Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Search for more papers by this authorEllen I. Damschen
Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706 USA
Search for more papers by this authorAnu M. Eskelinen
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Department of Ecology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorBarbara Fernandez-Going
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106 USA
Search for more papers by this authorMarko J. Spasojevic
Department of Biology and Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Search for more papers by this authorBrian L. Anacker
Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, City of Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80303 USA
Search for more papers by this authorJames H. Thorne
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Stella M. Copeland
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorSusan P. Harrison
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Search for more papers by this authorAndrew M. Latimer
Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Search for more papers by this authorEllen I. Damschen
Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706 USA
Search for more papers by this authorAnu M. Eskelinen
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Department of Ecology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorBarbara Fernandez-Going
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106 USA
Search for more papers by this authorMarko J. Spasojevic
Department of Biology and Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Search for more papers by this authorBrian L. Anacker
Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, City of Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80303 USA
Search for more papers by this authorJames H. Thorne
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, 95616 USA
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Understanding the consequences of extreme climatic events is a growing challenge in ecology. Climatic extremes may differentially affect varying elements of biodiversity, and may not always produce ecological effects exceeding those of “normal” climatic variation in space and time. We asked how the extreme drought years of 2013–2014 affected the cover, species richness, functional trait means, functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity of herbaceous plant communities across the California Floristic Province. We compared the directions and magnitudes of these drought effects with expectations from four “pre-drought” studies of variation in water availability: (1) a watering experiment, (2) a long-term (15-yr) monitoring of interannual variability, (3) a resampling of historic (57-yr-old) plots within a warming and drying region, and (4) natural variation in communities over a broad geographic gradient in precipitation. We found that the drought was associated with consistent reductions in species richness and cover, especially for annual forbs and exotic annual grasses, but not with changes in functional or phylogenetic diversity. Except for total cover and cover of exotic annual grasses, most drought effects did not exceed quantitative expectations based on the four pre-drought studies. Qualitatively, plant community responses to the drought were most concordant with responses to pre-drought interannual rainfall variability in the 15-yr monitoring study, and least concordant with responses to the geographic gradient in precipitation. Our results suggest that, at least in the short term, extreme drought may cause only a subset of community metrics to respond in ways that exceed normal background variability.
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