Environmental changes drive the temporal stability of semi-arid natural grasslands through altering species asynchrony

Stability is an important property of ecological systems, many of which are experiencing increasing levels of anthropogenic environmental changes. However, how these environmental changes influence ecosystem stability remains poorly understood. We conducted an 8-year field experiment in a semi-arid natural grassland to explore the effects of two common environmental changes, precipitation and nitrogen enrichment, on the temporal stability of plant above-ground biomass. A split-plot design, with precipitation as the main plot factor and nitrogen as the sub-plot factor, was used. Temporal stability was related to potential explanatory abiotic and biotic variables using regressions and structural equation modelling. Increase in growing season precipitation enhanced plant species richness and promoted temporal stability of plant above-ground biomass. Nitrogen fertilization, however, reduced both plant species richness and temporal stability of plant above-ground biomass. Contrary to expecta...