The Tibetan Plateau has experienced more rapid climate warming than the global average, coupled with greater interannual variation in precipitation over the past 50 years. How will such dramatic climate change influence the structure and function of alpine grasslands? Interest in this topic is high because of its importance to the sustainable development of animal husbandry and the livelihood of Tibetan inhabitants.
The Tibetan Plateau has experienced more rapid climate warming than the global average, coupled with greater interannual variation in precipitation over the past 50 years. How will such dramatic climate change influence the structure and function of alpine grasslands? Interest in this topic is high because of its importance to the sustainable development of animal husbandry and the livelihood of Tibetan inhabitants.
In 2011, HE Jinsheng's research team at the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, collaborating with scientists from Peking University, established a warming-by-precipitation manipulative experiment at the Haibei National Field Research Station of Alpine Grassland Ecosystem.
By combining the field manipulative experiment, 32 years of field monitoring and a meta-analysis from nine sites across the plateau, the impact of climate change on species composition and net primary productivity in Tibetan alpine grasslands was investigated.
The results have been published online in PNAS in a paper entitled "Shifting plant species composition in response to climate change stabilizes grassland primary production."
Read more at Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Image: The landscape of the long-term monitoring site and the warming and precipitation manipulation experiment at the Haibei National Field Research Station of Alpine Grassland Ecosystem. (Credit: HE Jinsheng)
