AUTHOR=Han Fusong , Yu Chengqun , Fu Gang 

TITLE=Non-growing/growing season non-uniform-warming increases precipitation use efficiency but reduces its temporal stability in an alpine meadow

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2023.1090204

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2023.1090204

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>There are still uncertainties on the impacts of season-non-uniform-warming on plant precipitation use efficiency (PUE) and its temporal stability (PUE<sub>stability</sub>) in alpine areas. Here, we examined the changes of PUE and PUE<sub>stability</sub> under two scenes of non-growing/growing season non-uniform-warming (i.e., GLNG: growing-season-warming lower than non-growing-season-warming; GHNG: growing-season-warming higher than non-growing-season-warming) based on a five-year non-uniform-warming of non-growing/growing season experiment. The GLNG treatment increased PUE by 38.70% and reduced PUE<sub>stability</sub> by 50.47%, but the GHNG treatment did not change PUE and PUE<sub>stability</sub>. This finding was mainly due to the fact that the GLNG treatment had stronger influences on aboveground biomass (AGB), non-growing-season soil moisture (SM<sub>NG</sub>), temporal stability of AGB (AGB<sub>stability</sub>), temporal stability of non-growing-season air temperature (<italic>T</italic><sub>a_NG_stability</sub>), temporal stability of growing-season vapor pressure deficit (VPD<sub>G_stability</sub>) and temporal stability of start of growing-season (SGS<sub>stability</sub>). Therefore, the warming scene with a higher non-growing-season-warming can have greater influences on PUE and PUE<sub>stability</sub> than the warming scene with a higher growing-season-warming, and there were possibly trade-offs between plant PUE and PUE<sub>stability</sub> under season-non-uniform-warming scenes in the alpine meadow.</p>