TeRaBio: Manipulating Temperature, Rainfall, and Biodiversity: Continuous Soil Moisture and Temperature

Ecosystems are undergoing and will continue to experience multiple, simultaneous global changes, including the loss of biodiversity, warming, and increased frequency and intensity of droughts. It is largely unknown whether and how these simultaneous shifts will interactively alter ecosystem processes. The Biodiversity and Climate (BAC) experiment (e249) at Cedar Creek has contributed to our understanding of how increasing temperatures can affect ecosystem functioning in communities planted with different numbers and combinations of plant species. Results to date suggest that the warming manipulation in this experiment is not only directly affecting ecosystems through increased temperature, but is also indirectly impacting ecosystems by creating drier soil and microclimate conditions. Such drying effects caused by warming could be exacerbated during droughts, which are expected to become increasingly frequent and intense. To investigate this, we propose to establish a new experiment that fully crosses three treatments: Temperature (ambient or warmed ~1.5??C above ambient), Rainfall (ambient or reduced by ~43%, which corresponds to a 1 in 100 year dry event), and Biodiversity (plots planted with 1, 4, or 16 species). Data collected will include yearly growing season aboveground net primary production, root biomass, soil moisture, relative humidity, light transmittance, and disease prevalence.