Legacies of precipitation change alter ecosystem responses to extreme drought
Date
2017
Authors
Slette, Ingrid, author
Blair, John, author
Hoover, David, author
Smith, Melinda, author
Knapp, Alan, author
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Global climate change is causing more extreme droughts, as well as subtler chronic changes in precipitation patterns. Both chronic and extreme precipitation change can alter ecosystem structure and function, and these alterations may affect how systems respond to future extreme climatic events. Understanding how legacies of various past precipitation changes may alter the effects of future extreme droughts will be important for predicting ecosystem responses to climate change. We investigated how ecological legacies of experimentally-imposed chronic and extreme precipitation changes altered the impact of an extreme drought on an economically-important grassland ecosystem.