Moderately prolonged dry intervals between precipitation events promote production in Leymus chinensis in a semi-arid grassland of Northeast China.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Climate change is predicted to lead to changes in the amount and distribution of precipitation during the growing seasonal. This "repackaging" of rainfall could be particularly important for grassland productivity. Here, we designed a two-factor full factorial experiment (three levels of precipitation amount and six levels of dry intervals) to investigate the effect of precipitation patterns on biomass production in Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel. (a dominant species in the Eastern Eurasian Steppe).

Results

Our results showed that increased amounts of rainfall with prolonged dry intervals promoted biomass production in L. chinensis by increasing soil moisture, except for the longest dry interval (21 days). However, prolonged dry intervals with increased amount of

SUBMITTER: Zhang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7981859 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature