BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Understanding the changes in below-ground bud bank density and composition along a climatic gradient is essential for the exploration of species distribution pattern and vegetation composition in response to climatic changes. Nevertheless, investigations on bud banks along climatic gradients are still scarce. The below-ground bud bank is expected to be reduced in size in arid conditions, and costly, bud-bearing organs with long spacers would be replaced by more compact forms with buds that are better protected than those found in moist conditions. METHODS: How total bud density and composition (different bud bank types) change with aridity (calculated value 0·43-0·91), mean annual precipitation (MAP; 93-420 mm) and mean annual temperature (MAT; -1·51 to 6·93 °C) was tested at 21 sites along a 2500-km climatic gradient in the temperate steppe of northern China. CONCLUSIONS: Belowground bud bank density decreases towards the dry, hot end of the climatic gradient. Based on the distribution of bud types along the climatic gradient, bulb buds and tiller buds of tussock grasses seem to be more resistant to environmental stress than rhizome buds. The dominance of annual species and smaller bud banks in arid region implies that plant reproductive strategies and vegetation composition will be shifted in scenarios of increased drought under future climate change.

CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management Institute of Applied Ecology Chinese Academy of Sciences Shenyang 110164 P R China

Department of Functional Ecology Institute of Botany ASCR CZ 379 82 Trebon Czech Republic

Department of Functional Ecology Institute of Botany ASCR CZ 379 82 Třeboň Czech Republic

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Benson EJ, Hartnett DC.. 2006. The role of seed and vegetative reproduction in plant recruitment and demography in tallgrass prairie. Plant Ecology 187: 163–178.

Benson EJ, Hartnett DC, Mann KH.. 2004. Belowground bud banks and meristem limitation in tallgrass prairie plant populations. American Journal of Botany 91: 416–421. PubMed

De Boeck HJ, Bassin S, Verlinden M, Zeiter M, Hiltbrunner E.. 2016. Simulated heat waves affected alpine grassland only in combination with drought. New Phytologist 209: 531–541. PubMed

Briske DD, Zhao M, Han G, et al.2015. Strategies to alleviate poverty and grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia: intensification vs production efficiency of livestock systems. Journal of Environmental Management 152: 177–182. PubMed

Carter DL, Vanderweide BL, Blair JM.. 2012. Drought-mediated stem and below-ground bud dynamics in restored grasslands. Applied Vegetation Science 15: 470–478.

Cayan DR, Das T, Pierce DW, Barnett TP, Tyree M, Gershunov A.. 2010. Future dryness in the southwest US and the hydrology of the 21st century drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 107: 21271–21276. PubMed PMC

Chen XS, Deng ZM, Xie YH, Li F, Hou ZY.. 2015. Belowground bud banks of four dominant macrophytes along a small-scale elevational gradient in Dongting Lake wetlands, China. Aquatic Botany 122: 9–14.

Clark JS, Grimm EC, Donovan JJ, et al.2002. Drought cycles and landscape responses to past aridity on prairies of the northern Great Plains, USA. Ecology 83: 595–601.

Cornelissen JH, Song YB, Yu FH, Dong M.. 2014. Plant traits and ecosystem effects of clonality: a new research agenda. Annals of Botany 114: 369–376. PubMed PMC

Dai A. 2013. Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models. Nature Climate Change 3: 52–58.

Dalgleish H, Ott J, Setshogo M, Hartnett D.. 2012. Inter-specific variation in bud banks and flowering effort among semi-arid African savanna grasses. South African Journal of Botany 83: 127–133.

Dalgleish HJ, Hartnett DC.. 2006. Below-ground bud banks increase along a precipitation gradient of the North American Great Plains: a test of the meristem limitation hypothesis. New Phytologist 171: 81–89. PubMed

Dalgleish HJ, Hartnett DC.. 2009. The effects of fire frequency and grazing on tallgrass prairie productivity and plant composition are mediated through bud bank demography. Plant Ecology 201: 411–420.

Dalgleish HJ, Kula AR, Hartnett DC, Sandercock BK.. 2008. Responses of two bunchgrasses to nitrogen addition in tallgrass prairie: the role of bud bank demography. American Journal of Botany 95: 672–680. PubMed

Delgado-Baquerizo M, Maestre FT, et al.2013. Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of aridity in global drylands. Nature 502: 672–676. PubMed

Evette A, Bédécarrats A, Bornette G.. 2009. Environmental constraints influence clonal traits of herbaceous plant communities in an Alpine Massif. Folia Geobotanica 44: 95–108.

Fair J, Lauenroth WK, Coffin DP.. 1999. Demography of Bouteloua gracilis in a mixed prairie: analysis of genets and individuals. Journal of Ecology 87: 233–243.

Feild T, Chatelet D, Brodribb T.. 2009. Ancestral xerophobia: a hypothesis on the whole plant ecophysiology of early angiosperms. Geobiology 7: 237–264. PubMed

Fidelis A, Appezzato-Da-Glória B, Pillar VD, Pfadenhauer J.. 2014. Does disturbance affect bud bank size and belowground structures diversity in Brazilian subtropical grasslands? Flora – Morphology, Distribution, Functional Ecology of Plants 209: 110–116.

Hartnett DC, Setshogo MP, Dalgleish HJ.. 2006. Bud banks of perennial savanna grasses in Botswana. African Journal of Ecology 44: 256–263.

Herben T, Chytry M, Klimešová J.. 2016. A quest for species-level indicator values for disturbance. Journal of Vegetation Science 27: 628–636.

Holdridge LR. 1959. Simple method for determining potential evapotranspiration from temperature data. Science 130: 572–572. PubMed

Hoover DL, Knapp AK, Smith MD.. 2014. Resistance and resilience of a grassland ecosystem to climate extremes. Ecology 95: 2646–2656.

Irmish T. 1850. Zur Morphologie der monokotylischen Knollen- und Zwiebelgewächse. Berlin: Reimer.

Kleiman D, Aarssen LW.. 2007. The leaf size/number trade-off in trees. Journal of Ecology 95: 376–382.

Klimeš L. 2003. Life-forms and clonality of vascular plants along an altitudinal gradient in E Ladakh (NW Himalayas). Basic and Applied Ecology 4: 317–328.

Klimeš L. 2008. Clonal splitters and integrators in harsh environments of the Trans-Himalaya. Evolutionary Ecology 22: 351–367.

Klimeš L, Klimešová J, VanGroenendael J.. 1997. Clonal plant architecture: a comparative analysis of form and function In: Kroon HD, Groenendael JV. eds. The ecology and evolution of clonal plants. Leiden: Backhuys, 1–29.

Klimešová J, Doležal J.. 2011. Are clonal plants more frequent in cold environments than elsewhere? Plant Ecology & Diversity 4: 373–378.

Klimešová J, Klimeš L.. 2007. Bud banks and their role in vegetative regeneration – a literature review and proposal for simple classification and assessment. Perspectives in Plant Ecology Evolution and Systematics 8: 115–129.

Klimešová J, Klimeš L.. 2008. Clonal growth diversity and bud banks of plants in the Czech flora: an evaluation using the CLO-PLA3 database. Preslia 80: 255–275.

Klimešová J, De Bello F, Herben T.. 2011. Searching for the relevance of clonal and bud bank traits across floras and communities. Folia Geobotanica 46: 109–115.

Klimešová J, Doležal J, Prach K, Košnar J.. 2012. Clonal growth forms in Arctic plants and their habitat preferences: a study from Petuniabukta, Spitsbergen. Polish Polar Research 33: 421–442.

Li Z, Lin J, Zhang T, Zhang N, Mu C, Wang J.. 2014. Effects of summer nocturnal warming on biomass production of Leymus chinensis in the Songnen Grassland of China: from bud bank and photosynthetic compensation. Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science 200: 66–76.

Liu B, Liu Z, Wang L.. 2012. The colonization of active sand dunes by rhizomatous plants through vegetative propagation and its role in vegetation restoration. Ecological Engineering 44: 344–347.

Luo WT, Dijkstra FA, Bai E, et al.2016. A threshold reveals decoupled relationship of sulfur with carbon and nitrogen in soils across arid and semi-arid grasslands in northern China. Biogeochemistry 127: 141–153.

McAuliffe JR, Hamerlynck EP.. 2010. Perennial plant mortality in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts in response to severe, multi-year drought. Journal of Arid Environments 74: 885–896.

Ott JP, Hartnett DC.. 2015a. Vegetative reproduction and bud bank dynamics of the perennial grass Andropogon gerardii in mixed-grass and tallgrass prairie. American Midland Naturalist 174: 14–32.

Ott JP, Hartnett DC.. 2015b. Bud bank dynamics and clonal growth strategy in the rhizomatous grass, Pascopyrum smithii. Plant Ecology 216: 395–405.

Pate JS, Dixon KW.. 1982. Tuberous, cormous and bulbous plants. Biology of an adaptive strategy in Western Australia. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.

Peters DPC. 2000. Climatic variation and simulated patterns in seedling establishment of two dominant grasses at a semi-arid-arid grassland ecotone. Journal of Vegetation Science 11: 493–504.

Piao S, Fang J, Zhou L, et al.2003. Interannual variations of monthly and seasonal normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in China from 1982 to 1999. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (1984–2012) 108: 4401.

Raunkiaer C. 1934. The life forms of plants and statistical plant geography. London: Clarendon Press.

Ruppert JC, Harmoney K, Henkin Z, et al.2015. Quantifying drylands' drought resistance and recovery: the importance of drought intensity, dominant life history and grazing regime. Global Change Biology 21: 1258–1270. PubMed

Smith MD. 2011. An ecological perspective on extreme climatic events: a synthetic definition and framework to guide future research. Journal of Ecology 99: 656–663.

Vanderweide BL, Hartnett DC.. 2015. Belowground bud bank response to grazing under severe, short-term drought. Oecologia 178: 795–806. PubMed

Vanderweide BL, Hartnett DC., Carter DL.. 2014. Belowground bud banks of tallgrass prairie are insensitive to multi-year, growing-season drought. Ecosphere 5: 103.

Wang JF, Gao S, Lin JX, Mu YG., Mu CS.. 2010. Summer warming effects on biomass production and clonal growth of Leymus chinensis. Crop & Pasture Science 61: 670–676.

Wu G, Zhao L, Wang D, Shi Z.. 2014. Effects of time-since fire on vegetation composition and structure in semi-arid perennial grassland on the Loess Plateau, China. Clean – Soil, Air, Water 42: 98–103.

Yang X, Zhang K, Jia B, Ci L.. 2005. Desertification assessment in China: an overview. Journal of Arid Environments 63: 517–531.

Ye X, Tang S, Cornwell WK, et al.2015. Impact of land-use on carbon storage as dependent on soil texture: evidence from a desertified dryland using repeated paired sampling design. Journal of Environmental Management 150: 489–498. PubMed

Yin Y, Liu H, Liu G, Hao Q, Wang HY.. 2013. Vegetation responses to mid-Holocene extreme drought events and subsequent long-term drought on the southeastern Inner Mongolian Plateau, China. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 178: 3–9.

Zanne AE, Tank DC, Cornwell WK, et al.2014. Three keys to the radiation of angiosperms into freezing environments. Nature 506: 89–92. PubMed

Zhao L, Wu G, Shi Z.. 2013. Post-fire species recruitment in a semiarid perennial steppe on the Loess Plateau. Australian Journal of Botany 61: 29–35.

Zhao W, Chen Y, Li J, Jia G.. 2010. Periodicity of plant yield and its response to precipitation in the steppe desert of the Tianshan Mountains region. Journal of Arid Environments 74: 445–449.

Zomer RJ, Trabucco A, Bossio DA, Verchot LV.. 2008. Climate change mitigation: a spatial analysis of global land suitability for clean development mechanism afforestation and reforestation. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 126: 67–80.

The ecology and significance of below-ground bud banks in plants