A systemic overreaction to years versus decades of warming in a subarctic grassland ecosystem

• Main Authors: Walker, Tom WN, Janssens, Ivan A, Weedon, James T, Sigurdsson, Bjarni D, Richter, Andreas, Peñuelas, Josep, Leblans, Niki IW, Bahn, Michael, Bartrons, Mireia, De Jonge, Cindy, Fuchslueger, Lucia, Gargallo-Garriga, Albert, Gunnarsdóttir, Gunnhildur E, Marañón-Jiménez, Sara, Oddsdóttir, Edda S, Ostonen, Ivika, Poeplau, Christopher, Prommer, Judith, Radujković, Dajana, Sardans, Jordi, Sigurðsson, Páll, Soong, Jennifer L, Vicca, Sara, Wallander, Håkan, Ilieva-Makulec, Krassimira, Verbruggen, Erik
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: eScholarship, University of California 2020
• Subjects: Environmental Sciences; Biological Sciences; Ecology; Life Below Water; Carbon Cycle; Climate Change; Ecosystem; Grassland; Soil; Evolutionary biology; Environmental management; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/99v0g8pc

Temperature governs most biotic processes, yet we know little about how warming affects whole ecosystems. Here we examined the responses of 128 components of a subarctic grassland to either 5-8 or >50 years of soil warming. Warming of >50 years drove the ecosystem to a new steady state possessing a distinct biotic composition and reduced species richness, biomass and soil organic matter. However, the warmed state was preceded by an overreaction to warming, which was related to organism physiology and was evident after 5-8 years. Ignoring this overreaction yielded errors of >100% for 83 variables when predicting their responses to a realistic warming scenario of 1 °C over 50 years, although some, including soil carbon content, remained stable after 5-8 years. This study challenges long-term ecosystem predictions made from short-term observations, and provides a framework for characterization of ecosystem responses to sustained climate change.