Responses of soil respiration to experimental warming in an alpine steppe on the Tibetan Plateau

High-latitude and high-altitude ecosystems store large amounts of carbon (C) and play a vital role in the global C cycle. Soil respiration ( R S ) in these ecosystems is believed to be extremely sensitive to climate warming and could potentially trigger positive C-climate feedback. However, this evidence is largely derived from wet ecosystems, with limited observations from dry ecosystems. Here, we explored the responses of R S , autotrophic ( R A ), and heterotrophic ( R H ) respiration under experimental warming in a dry ecosystem, an alpine steppe on the Tibetan Plateau. We assessed the effects of soil temperature and moisture dynamics on R S , R A, and R H and performed a meta-analysis to examine whether the warming effects observed were similar to those reported in wet ecosystems, including Tibetan alpine meadow and arctic ecosystem. Experimental warming did not alter R S , R A, and R H in this alpine steppe, likely because decreased soil moisture constrained positive warming effects. In contrast, the meta-analysis revealed that R S exhibited a significant increase under experimental warming in both the Tibetan alpine meadow and arctic wet tundra. These results demonstrate that R S exhibits different responses to climate warming between dry and wet ecosystems, suggesting potential more complex C-climate feedback in cold regions

Atmospheric sciences · Biology · Climate change · Ecosystem · Ecosystem respiration · Global warming · Plateau (mathematics · Primary production · Steppe · Terrestrial ecosystem · Tundra · Climate change and permafrost · Cryospheric studies and observations · Environmental Science · Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology · Ecology · Geology

• Soil microbial respiration adapts to higher and longer warming experiments at the global scale

  Open Access•Lu Yang, Yang Lu et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2023

  Add to list

• Fine-Tuning Some Resistant Rules for Outlier Labeling

  David C Hoaglin, Boris Iglewicz•Journal of the American…•1987

  Add to list

• Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback

  Open Access•E A G Schuur, Angel Ribes Pons et al.•Nature•2015

  Add to list

• Estimated stocks of circumpolar permafrost carbon with quantified uncertainty ranges and identified data gaps

  Open Access•Gustaf Hugelius, Jens Strauss et al.•Biogeosciences•2014

  Add to list

• The Meta-Analysis of Response Ratios in Experimental Ecology

  Open Access•Larry V Hedges, Jessica Gurevitch et al.•Ecology•1999

  Add to list

• Nonlinear response of soil respiration to increasing nitrogen additions in a Tibetan alpine steppe

  Open Access•Yunfeng Peng, Fei Li et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2017

  Add to list

• Dynamics of aboveground phytomass of the circumpolar Arctic tundra during the past three decades

  Open Access•Howard E Epstein, Martha K Raynolds et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2012

  Add to list