The research shows that drought, warming and increased CO2 concentrations have a profound impact on grassland ecosystems, which cover almost 40% of the Earth’s surface and are crucial for the global water cycle.
The simulation of future climate scenarios revealed that CO2 increases make water use by plants more efficient in the short term, while warming and drought affect soil hydrological connectivity and thus water availability for plants in the long term. Recurrent drought alters water movement in the soil, leading to poor mixing and long-term restrictions on plant growth and regeneration capacity.
Christine Stumpp from the Institute of Soil Physics and Agricultural Water Management was a key cooperation partner in this project. She was responsible for the design of the monitoring, carried out measurements of soil physical properties and supported the team from the Institute of Ecology at the University of Innsbruck, which
An experimental setup with radiant heaters, CO2 fumigation and rain shielding made it possible to simulate realistic climate scenarios since 2014. The results show that repeated drought sustainably reduces the ability of ecosystems to regenerate. This underlines the need to develop strategies to strengthen ecosystem resilience and to intensify climate protection measures.
The new study has just been published in the journal Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0734
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