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Water cycling and availability exert dominant control over ecological processes and the sustainability of ecosystem services in water - limited ecosystems. Consequently, dryland ecosystems have the potential to be dramatically impacted by hydrologic alterations emerging from global change, notably increasing temperature and altered precipitation patterns. In addition, the possibility of directly manipulating global solar radiation by augmenting stratospheric SO2 is receiving increasing attention as CO2 emissions continue to increase - these manipulations are anticipated to decrease precipitation, a change that may be as influential as temperature increases in dryland ecosystems. We propose to integrate a proven...
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Drylands cover 40% of the global terrestrial surface and provide important ecosystem services. While drylands as a whole are expected to increase in extent and aridity in coming decades, temperature and precipitation forecasts vary by latitude and geographic region suggesting different trajectories for tropical, subtropical, and temperate drylands. Uncertainty in the future of tropical and subtropical drylands is well constrained, whereas soil moisture and ecological droughts, which drive vegetation productivity and composition, remain poorly understood in temperate drylands. Here we show that, over the twenty first century, temperate drylands may contract by a third, primarily converting to subtropical drylands,...
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Regeneration is an essential demographic step that affects plant population persistence, recovery after disturbances, and potential migration to track suitable climate conditions. Challenges of restoring big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) after disturbances including fire-invasive annual grass interactions exemplify the need to understand the complex regeneration processes of this long-lived, woody species that is widespread across the semiarid western U.S. Projected 21st century climate change is expected to increase drought risks and intensify restoration challenges. A detailed understanding of regeneration will be crucial for developing management frameworks for the big sagebrush region in the 21st century....
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Drylands occur world-wide and are particularly vulnerable to climate change since dryland ecosystems depend directly on soil water availability that may become increasingly limited as temperatures rise. Climate change will both directly impact soil water availability, and also change plant biomass, with resulting indirect feedbacks on soil moisture. Thus, the net impact of direct and indirect climate change effects on soil moisture requires better understanding. We used the ecohydrological simulation model SOILWAT at sites from temperate dryland ecosystems around the globe to disentangle the contributions of direct climate change effects and of additional indirect, climate change-induced changes in vegetation on...
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These GeoTIFF data were compiled to investigate how a new multivariate matching algorithm transfers simulated plant functional biomass of big sagebrush plant communities from 200 sites to a gridded product with 30-arcsec spatial resolution. Objectives of our study were to (1) describe how climate change will alter the biomass and composition of key plant functional types; (2) quantify the impacts of climate change on future functional type biomass and composition along climatic gradients; (3) identify if and which geographic locations will be relatively unaffected by climate change while others experience large effects; and (4) determine if there is consistency in climate change impacts on plant communities among...
Tags: 30-arcsecond spatial resolution,
Arizona,
Botany,
C3 perennial grasses,
C4 perennial grasses, All tags...
CMIP5,
California,
Colorado,
Ecology,
GeoTIFF data,
Geography,
Idaho,
Information Sciences,
Montana,
Nebraska,
Nevada,
New Mexico,
North Dakota,
Oregon,
RCP4.5,
RCP8.5,
South Dakota,
USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC),
Utah,
Washington,
Wyoming,
atmospheric and climatic processes,
big sagebrush,
biogeography,
biomass,
biota,
cheatgrass,
climate change,
climate conditions,
climatic gradients,
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere,
conservation,
data release,
effects of climate change,
environment,
future climate,
geographic patterns,
historical climate,
landscape-level planning,
mathematical simulation,
multivariate matching algorithm,
natural resource management,
perennial forbs,
perennial grasses,
plant communities,
plant functional types,
population and community ecology,
regional-level planning,
representative concentration pathway,
sagebrush region,
spatial analysis,
western United States, Fewer tags
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