Thu, Aug 18, 2022: 8:45 AM-9:00 AM
513C
Background/Question/MethodsGlobal change drivers directly affect plant population dynamics by either increasing or decreasing births and deaths, and/or impacting species dispersal. Thus, some species are predicted to benefit from global change while other are predicted to be harmed by it. We used the Community Responses to Resource Experiments (CoRRE) database to determine the plant functional traits and phylogenetic lineages of species that tend to increase or decrease in abundance under experimental global change treatments. The CoRRE database includes 138 experiments from 70 locations globally and 2875 individual plant species with categorical and continuous traits. To understand how phylogenetic lineages were being impacted by global change we assessed which species below nodes were increasing or decreasing in abundance more than expected by chance. To study which categorical or continuous traits are associated with increasing or decreasing abundance we ran mixed models with trait values predicting a species’ change in abundance. We did this for several global change drivers separately (elevated CO2, temperature, nitrogen, and phosphorus, and irrigation and drought). Next, we tested for the interactive effects of two or more global change drivers manipulated simultaneously to capture the multivariate nature of global change.
Results/ConclusionsOverall, we found different patterns of species responses depending on the global change driver being manipulated. For traits, we found that that species with fast growth traits (e.g., high specific leaf area, annual life history) are promoted by global change drivers that increase resource availability, such as nutrient additions or irrigation. Species that have resource acquisition traits (e.g., deep roots and being a nitrogen-fixer) tend to decline in abundance with increased resource availability. When we looked for a phylogenetic signal, we found that phylogenetic history did impact a species response to nitrogen addition, and drought but not irrigation, CO2, phosphorus or temperature additions. For nitrogen, we found that the Fabaceae species were being harmed, but species in the Cyperaceae and Amaranthaceae were benefiting. When we investigated the impact of interacting global change treatments, we found a significant phylogenetic signal, with species in the Fabaceae declining and species in the Poaceae and Euphorbiaceae benefiting. Overall, our results highlight the importance of studying interacting global change drivers and shed light which species will be winners and which will be losers with global change.
Results/ConclusionsOverall, we found different patterns of species responses depending on the global change driver being manipulated. For traits, we found that that species with fast growth traits (e.g., high specific leaf area, annual life history) are promoted by global change drivers that increase resource availability, such as nutrient additions or irrigation. Species that have resource acquisition traits (e.g., deep roots and being a nitrogen-fixer) tend to decline in abundance with increased resource availability. When we looked for a phylogenetic signal, we found that phylogenetic history did impact a species response to nitrogen addition, and drought but not irrigation, CO2, phosphorus or temperature additions. For nitrogen, we found that the Fabaceae species were being harmed, but species in the Cyperaceae and Amaranthaceae were benefiting. When we investigated the impact of interacting global change treatments, we found a significant phylogenetic signal, with species in the Fabaceae declining and species in the Poaceae and Euphorbiaceae benefiting. Overall, our results highlight the importance of studying interacting global change drivers and shed light which species will be winners and which will be losers with global change.