Nov 13 – 15, 2024
Leipziger KUBUS Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ
Europe/Berlin timezone
Welcome to the iDiv Conference 2024! Registration is now closed

Land use modulates resistance of grasslands against future climate and inter-annual climate variability in a large field experiment

Nov 14, 2024, 11:45 AM
15m
Leipziger KUBUS/1-B - Hall 1 B (Leipziger KUBUS)

Leipziger KUBUS/1-B - Hall 1 B

Leipziger KUBUS

150
Talk Biodiversity Change Talk Session

Speaker

Lotte Korell (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ)

Description

Climate and land-use change are key drivers of global change. Full-factorial field experiments in which both drivers are manipulated are essential to understand and predict their potentially interactive effects on the structure and functioning of grassland ecosystems. Here, we present eight years of data on grassland dynamics from the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF) in Central Germany. On large experimental plots, temperature and seasonal patterns of precipitation are manipulated by superimposing regional climate model projections onto background climate variability. Climate manipulation is factorially crossed with agricultural land-use scenarios, including intensively used meadows and extensively used (i.e. low-intensity) meadows and pastures. Inter-annual variation of background climate during our study years was high, including three of the driest years on record for our region. The effects of this temporal variability far exceeded the effects of the experimentally imposed climate change on plant species diversity and productivity, especially in the intensively used grasslands sown with only a few grass cultivars. These changes in productivity and diversity in response to alterations in climate were accompanied by immigrant species replacing the target forage cultivars. This shift from forage cultivars to immigrant species may impose additional economic costs in terms of a decreasing forage value and the need for more frequent management measures. In contrast, the extensively used grasslands showed weaker responses to both experimentally manipulated future climate and inter-annual climate variability, suggesting that these diverse grasslands are more resistant to climate change than intensively used grasslands composed of only a few grass cultivars. We therefore conclude that a lower management intensity of agricultural grasslands, associated with a higher plant diversity, can stabilize primary productivity under climate change.

Status Group Postdoctoral Researcher

Primary author

Lotte Korell (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ)

Co-authors

Martin Andrzejak (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)) Sigrid Berger (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Walte Durka (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Sylvia Haider (Leuphana University of Lüneburg) Isabell Hensen (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg) Yva Herion (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)) Johannes Höfner (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Liana Kindermann (University of Potsdam) Stefan Klotz (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Tiffany Marie Knight (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Anja Linstädter (University of Potsdam) Anna-Maria Madaj (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)) Ines Merbach (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Stefan Michalski (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Carolin Plos (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg) Christiane Roscher (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Martin Schädler (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) Erik Welk (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg) Harald Auge (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.