Researchers use both experiments and observations to study the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, but results from these contrasting approaches have not been systematically compared for droughts. Using a meta-analysis and accounting for potential confounding factors, we demonstrate that aboveground biomass responded only about half as much to experimentally imposed drought events as to natural droughts. Our findings indicate that experimental results may underestimate climate change impacts and highlight the need to integrate results across approaches.

'Lendület' Landscape and Conservation Ecology Institute of Ecology and Botany Centre for Ecological Research Vácrátót Hungary

CREAF Cerdanyola del Vallès Spain

CSIC Global Ecology Unit CREAF CSIC UAB Bellaterra Spain

Department of Biological Sciences Purdue University West Lafayette IN USA

Department of Ecology University of Innsbruck Innsbruck Austria

Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Purdue University West Lafayette IN USA

Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management University of Copenhagen Frederiksberg Denmark

Disturbance Ecology Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research University of Bayreuth Bayreuth Germany

Experimental Plant Ecology University of Greifswald Greifswald Germany

Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences Brno Czech Republic

Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics University of Amsterdam Amsterdam the Netherlands

Institute of Ecology and Botany Centre for Ecological Research Vácrátót Hungary

Namibia University of Science and Technology Windhoek Namibia

Plant Ecology Group University of Tübingen Tübingen Germany

Plants and Ecosystems Department of Biology University of Antwerp Wilrijk Belgium

School of Plant Sciences and Food Security Faculty of Life Sciences Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology Bangor UK

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Nat Ecol Evol. 2022 Jun;6(6):823. doi: 10.1038/s41559-022-01767-2. PubMed

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Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally

Field experiments underestimate aboveground biomass response to drought

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10.6084/m9.figshare.17881073