Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 118, Issue 42, Pages -Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023691118j1of9
Keywords
climate variability consumer-resource dynamics phenology mismatch rainfall pattern steppe grassland
Categories
Funding
- Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB11050300]
- State Basic Research Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology [2007CB109100]
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The study found that moderate rainfall during the early growing season, rather than the late growing season, can advance the timing of peak reproduction of a generalist herbivore population and increase its population size by increasing the biomass of preferred plant species. However, greatly increased rainfall did not further increase vole population growth, possibly due to the negative effect of burrow flooding.
Climate change-induced shifts in species phenology differ widely across trophic levels, which may lead to consumer-resource mismatches with cascading population and ecosystem consequences. Here, we examined the effects of different rainfall patterns (i.e., timing and amount) on the phenological asynchrony of population of a generalist herbivore and their food sources in semiarid steppe grassland in Inner Mongolia. We conducted a 10-y (2010 to 2019) rainfall manipulation experiment in 12 0.48-ha field enclosures and found that moderate rainfall increases during the early rather than late growing season advanced the timing of peak reproduction and drove marked increases in population size through increasing the biomass of preferred plant species. By contrast, greatly increased rainfall produced no further increases in vole population growth due to the potential negative effect of the flooding of burrows. The increases in vole population size were more coupled with increased reproduction of overwintered voles and increased body mass of young-of-year than with better survival. Our results provide experimental evidence for the fitness consequences of phenological mismatches at the population level and highlight the importance of rainfall timing on the population dynamics of small herbivores in the steppe grassland environment.
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