the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Contemporary biodiversity pattern is affected by climate change at multiple temporal scales in steppe on the Mongolian Plateau
Zijing Li
Zhiyong Li
Xuze Tong
Lei Dong
Ying Zheng
Jinghui Zhang
Bailing Miao
Lixin Wang
Liqing Zhao
Lu Wen
Guodong Han
Frank Yonghong Li
Cunzhu Liang
Abstract. Present and historical climate conditions jointly determine contemporary biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functions. However, it remains unclear how contemporary climate and paleoclimate changes together affect the three dimensions of biodiversity (i.e., taxonomic diversity, functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity) and their relationship with ecosystem functions. Here, we assess the impact of current climate, paleoclimate and its anomalies on contemporary biodiversity and ecosystem functions. We estimated the taxonomic diversity, functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity of grassland on the Mongolian Plateau using vegetation survey data and trait information. We then used Random Forest models and Structural Equation models to assess the relative importance of the present climate, the Mid Holocene climate, the Last-Glacial Maximum climate and paleoclimate changes as determinants of diversity and aboveground biomass. Our results showed that paleoclimate changes and modern climate jointly determined contemporary biodiversity patterns, while community biomass was mainly affected by modern climate, namely the aridity index. Modern aridity and temperature were two major influences on all three dimensions of biodiversity. Mid-Holocene climate anomalies had a strong effect on species richness and phylogenetic diversity, while functional diversity was mainly affected by temperature anomalies since the Last Glacial Maximum. These findings suggest that contemporary biodiversity patterns may be affected by processes at divergent temporal scales. Our results show that simultaneously exploring the response of the three dimensions of biodiversity in different periods of climate change and the theoretical framework for its impact on community biomass is helpful to provide a more comprehensive understanding of patterns of biodiversity and its relationship with ecosystem functions.
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Zijing Li et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on bg-2022-173', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Oct 2022
This paper studied the response of three dimensions of biodiversity of grassland in different periods of climate change, and formed a theoretical framework for their impacts on community biomass, based on 152 grassland sites set on Mongolia Plateau. It's a good job.
My only concern is that, were the community biomass measured in the same year or not? If there’re measured in the same year, is it a good year or a bad year (biomass always varies greatly from year to year, especially for grassland)? Data matching is always a big problem. Data on meteorological and plant functional traits used in this paper are obtained as interpolated or observed averages, whereas data of community biomass are measured values.
Minor commences:
Line 10: Pastoral
Line 49: ‘biodiversity and ecosystem functions’ is not one word.
Line 60: the abbreviation of BEF is not appropriate here.
Line 80: need reference.
Line 82: the location of the reference is inappropriate.
Methods: Why five indicators of functional diversity were selected, while only three indicators of other two kinds of diversity were selected? Would it affect the results of their “relative effect”?
Discussion: the answer to science question 3 needs to be strengthened in the discussion section.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2022-173-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on bg-2022-173', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Mar 2023
General comments
This paper analyzes the influence of past and present climate on the contemporary biodiversity pattern of grassland on the Mongolian Plateau. They compare the influence of modern climate (MAT, MAP, Aridity Index) with that of mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) climate on contemporary biodiversity. For this purpose, the authors sampled 152 sites on the Mongolian Plateau during field surveys between 2014 and 2018 and determined three categories of biodiversity, i.e., taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional biodiversity. Furthermore, they simulated the climatic conditions during the mid-Holocene and the LGM. Finally, they used Random Forest and Structural Equation models They found that both paleoclimate changes and modern climate governed contemporary biodiversity patterns, while community biomass was mainly affected by the modern aridity index.
The paper is well written. The methods for determining the three different biodiversity categories and for analyzing the relationship between past and present climate on the one hand, and biodiversity patterns on the other, appear to be scientifically sound. Overall, the paper adds knowledge to the previously published results of the same group of authors on the effect of humidity on the relationship between species richness and biomass. Therefore, it could be considered for publication in Biogeosciences. However, there are some specific questions and issues that need to be addressed before the paper becomes acceptable for publication. Those points are specified below.
Specific comments:
L147: How did you define "limited human interference"?
L148: Which criteria were used to decide whether one or three 10 m x 10 m quadrats were set?
L150: Why only three quadrats at a few sites?
L168: Which reference period did you choose for "present-day" climate? 1961-1990? 1981-2010? Or else? Please specify here.
L169: With simple calculation of temperature or precipitation differences, you get a simple measure of climate change from past to present, but not of climate variabiliy in the period between. This should be made clear here, otherwise the term climate variability is misleading here.
L180: Do you really mean median, or mean? In the following sentence you have calculated the mean value of the range.
L286-293: Please specify contribution of AI, MAT, MAP for each of the four periods because it could be MAT, MAP, AI, or a combination of those.
L297-298: Please decide: MAT anomaly or MAT & MAP anomaly.
L344: Please cite some key papers.
L345: Give a reason why further studies are needed. Should ideally become clear already in the Introduction.
L355: “and especially climate change”: It is not clear how you assessed or quantified past climate change in the respective region. You had simulated mid-Holocene and LGM climate, but as far as I have understood, no information on the periods in between, i.e., no information on how climate changed in the meantime, was available.
L355: “Paleoclimate changes filtered”: Same here: how did you assess past climate change? By simple linear interpolation between LGM and mid-Holocene and present-day climate? Please explain.
L368: Do you mean MAP and temperature here? Otherwise MAT and temperature are repetitive.
L372-374: This sentence does not really explain the differences between your results for Mongolian grasslands and the literature reports on global forests. Please elaborate.
L375-376: If functional richness was negatively related to LGM climate anomaly, it means that functional richness was decreased more strongly with greater climate anomaly, but then it can't be due to the tolerance of plant traits to past climatic conditions, but due to their intolerance.
L379: This sentence backs up my statement that there was very likely a reduction of functional diversity in the past.
L412: Your previous research (Li et al., 2020), where you described the influence of humidity on the relationship between SR and biomass, should also be mentioned in the introduction
Fig. S1: It would be good to also show the MAT of the current climate, as well as the Aridity Index of mid-Holocene and LGM climate for the sake of consistency.
Technical corrections: see annotated manuscript.
Zijing Li et al.
Zijing Li et al.
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