scholarly journals Plants and Microbes Mediate the Shift in Ecosystem Multifunctionality From Low to High Patterns Across Alpine Grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Wang ◽  
Miao Liu ◽  
Youchao Chen ◽  
Tao Zeng ◽  
Xuyang Lu ◽  
...  

Both plant communities and soil microbes have been reported to be correlated with ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) in terrestrial ecosystems. However, the process and mechanism of aboveground and belowground communities on different EMF patterns are not clear. In order to explore different response patterns and mechanisms of EMF, we divided EMF into low (<0) and high patterns (>0). We found that there were contrasting patterns of low and high EMF in the alpine grassland ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau. Specifically, compared with low EMF, environmental factors showed higher sensitivity to high EMF. Soil properties are critical factors that mediate the impact of community functions on low EMF based on the change of partial correlation coefficients from 0 to 0.24. In addition, plant community functions and microbial biomass may mediate the shift of EMF from low to high patterns through the driving role of climate across the alpine grassland ecosystem. Our findings will be vital to clarify the mechanism for the stability properties of grassland communities and ecosystems under ongoing and future climate change.

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pei Zhiyong ◽  
Ouyang Hua ◽  
Zhou Caiping ◽  
Xu Xingliang

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 610-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaofeng Zhu ◽  
Yonghong Su ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Kun Zhang ◽  
Changbin Li ◽  
...  

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 307
Author(s):  
Chi Zhang ◽  
Naixia Mou ◽  
Jiqiang Niu ◽  
Lingxian Zhang ◽  
Feng Liu

Changes in snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have a significant impact on agriculture, hydrology, and ecological environment of surrounding areas. This study investigates the spatio-temporal pattern of snow depth (SD) and snow cover days (SCD), as well as the impact of temperature and precipitation on snow cover over TP from 1979 to 2018 by using the ERA5 reanalysis dataset, and uses the Mann–Kendall test for significance. The results indicate that (1) the average annual SD and SCD in the southern and western edge areas of TP are relatively high, reaching 10 cm and 120 d or more, respectively. (2) In the past 40 years, SD (s = 0.04 cm decade−1, p = 0.81) and SCD (s = −2.3 d decade−1, p = 0.10) over TP did not change significantly. (3) The positive feedback effect of precipitation is the main factor affecting SD, while the negative feedback effect of temperature is the main factor affecting SCD. This study improves the understanding of snow cover change and is conducive to the further study of climate change on TP.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 7329-7343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiming Li ◽  
Qiaoyi Lv ◽  
Bida Jian ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Chuanfeng Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract. Studies have shown that changes in cloud cover are responsible for the rapid climate warming over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) in the past 3 decades. To simulate the total cloud cover, atmospheric models have to reasonably represent the characteristics of vertical overlap between cloud layers. Until now, however, this subject has received little attention due to the limited availability of observations, especially over the TP. Based on the above information, the main aim of this study is to examine the properties of cloud overlaps over the TP region and to build an empirical relationship between cloud overlap properties and large-scale atmospheric dynamics using 4 years (2007–2010) of data from the CloudSat cloud product and collocated ERA-Interim reanalysis data. To do this, the cloud overlap parameter α, which is an inverse exponential function of the cloud layer separation D and decorrelation length scale L, is calculated using CloudSat and is discussed. The parameters α and L are both widely used to characterize the transition from the maximum to random overlap assumption with increasing layer separations. For those non-adjacent layers without clear sky between them (that is, contiguous cloud layers), it is found that the overlap parameter α is sensitive to the unique thermodynamic and dynamic environment over the TP, i.e., the unstable atmospheric stratification and corresponding weak wind shear, which leads to maximum overlap (that is, greater α values). This finding agrees well with the previous studies. Finally, we parameterize the decorrelation length scale L as a function of the wind shear and atmospheric stability based on a multiple linear regression. Compared with previous parameterizations, this new scheme can improve the simulation of total cloud cover over the TP when the separations between cloud layers are greater than 1 km. This study thus suggests that the effects of both wind shear and atmospheric stability on cloud overlap should be taken into account in the parameterization of decorrelation length scale L in order to further improve the calculation of the radiative budget and the prediction of climate change over the TP in the atmospheric models.


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