Disturbance amplifies sensitivity of drylands to fluctuations in precipitation

Tyson Terry1
1 Disturbance Ecology,

O 2.2 in Zooming out: Evolution, biomes, global trends

12.10.2023, 14:45-15:00, H 36

Many ecosystem services in drylands depend on the relationship between precipitation and net primary production (NPP), but how disturbance alters this relationship is poorly understood. Using remote-sensing to pair over 5600 km of natural gas pipeline corridors with neighboring undisturbed areas in North American deserts, we found that disturbance reduced average annual production 6-29% and caused up to a five-fold increase in the sensitivity of NPP to interannual variation in precipitation. Impacts of disturbance were larger and longer-lasting at locations with higher precipitation (>450 mm mean annual precipitation). The majority of disturbance effects on NPP and its sensitivity were explained by shifts from woody to herbaceous vegetation. Severe disturbance will magnify effects of increasing precipitation variability on NPP in drylands, and increase the variability of the global carbon cycle.



Keywords: Disturbance, deserts, carbon, precipitation

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