Climate Change is the most pressing challenge, having a cascading impact on global biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Environmentalists expected delayed species extinctions and abrupt community reshuffling in the near future.
Almost all terrestrial plants have shown a slow response, despite the rapid pace of warming. However, this slow response to climate change mostly aligns with the forest ecosystem, and not all ecosystems respond similarly.
Unlike forest ecosystems, other ecosystems have relatively gone understudied. As per the new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, short-lived dominant species of grassland are highly responsive to climate change. Research by the University of Michigan has stated that the grassland ecosystem responds to climate change almost in real time.
“Climate change does have consequences for our ecosystems. It’s going to come sooner or later. Grasslands are at the faster end of the spectrum,” says the lead co-author Yiluan Song.
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Identifying such rapid ecological changes in grassland communities is vital for early detection and accurate projection of climate change impacts. This study also provides key insights for the restoration of grassland vegetation.
“If you want to restore grasslands, you have to ask what types of species you will plant,” Zhu said. “In order to answer that, you need to at least take climate change into consideration.”
Recent research that studies compositional shifts in grasslands appears to be quite narrow. For instance, few observations demonstrated relative increases in grasses under concurrent warming, while other experiments suggested seemingly inconsistent compositional shifts. Therefore, the authors have urged for extensive records to analyze them robustly.
To assess the response of grassland to rapid climate change, researchers amassed observations of a global biodiversity hotspot – California Floristic Province (CFP). CFP boasts over 5,000 native plant species with over 30% endemism. Researchers documented the data from over 12 sites monitored for 8–33 years.
As the climate became hotter and drier, researchers found that the CFP grassland communities shifted toward species associated with warmer and drier locations.
The team also included decade-long data to state that climate change can induce changes in communities. The team characterized the climate preferences and niches for various species in the region. This new approach yielded a clear, consistent conclusion that the ecological change was fast and comparable to the observed rate of climate change. Researchers also stated that such a rapid shift in plant communities could not be deemed as adaptation.
“To me, adaptation gives a positive impression that the system is changing to counter some of the negative effects of climate change,” Song said. “The rapid shifts in grassland communities involve not only the gain of some hotter, drier species but also the loss of some cooler, wetter species. These shifts might have negative consequences such as dominance by non-native species and loss of biodiversity.”
While the study by Kai Zhu and Yiluan Song focused on a single region, they believe that the data from other grasslands will hold similar data.
“I would hypothesize that we may see an even greater response to climate change in other grasslands around the world,” Zhu said.
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Journal Reference
- Zhu, K., Song, Y., Lesage, J. C., Luong, J. C., Bartolome, J. W., Chiariello, N. R., Dudney, J., Field, C. B., Hallett, L. M., Hammond, M., Harrison, S. P., Hayes, G. F., Hobbs, R. J., Holl, K. D., Hopkinson, P., Larios, L., Loik, M. E., & Prugh, L. R. (2024). Rapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1-13. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02552-z
