The productivity and community structures of terrestrial ecosystems are regulated by total precipitation amount and intra-annual precipitation patterns, which have been altered by climate change. The timing and sizes of precipitation events are the two key factors of intra-annual precipitation patterns and potentially drive ecosystem function by influencing soil moisture. However, the generalizable patterns of how intra-annual precipitation patterns affect the productivity and community structures of ecosystems remain unclear.
We synthesized 633 observations from 17 studies and conducted a global meta-analysis to investigate the influences of intra-annual precipitation patterns on the productivity and community structures of terrestrial ecosystems. By classifying intra-annual precipitation patterns, we also assess the importance of the magnitude and timing of precipitation events on plant productivity.
Our results showed that the intra-annual precipitation patterns decreased diversity by 6.3% but increased belowground net primary productivity, richness, and relative abundance by 16.8%, 10.5%, and 45.0%, respectively. Notably, we found that the timing uniformity of precipitation events was more important for plant productivity, while the plant community structure benefited from the increased precipitation variability. In addition, the relationship between plant productivity and community structure and soil moisture dynamic response was more consistent with the nonlinear model.
The patterns of the responses of plant productivity and community structure to altered intra-annual precipitation patterns were revealed, and the importance of the timing uniformity of precipitation events to the functioning of production systems was highlighted, which is essential to enhancing understanding of the structures and functions of ecosystems subjected to altered precipitation patterns and predicting their changes.