ArticleNature communications2021
Responses of plant diversity to precipitation change are strongest at local spatial scales and in drylands.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- World-wide impacts of climate change and nitrogen deposition on vegetation structure, composition, and functioning of shrublands.The New phytologist · 2025Pooled it
- Synthesis of scale-dependent plant biodiversity change in climate warming experiments.Ecology · 2026Article
- Herbaceous plant communities respond more to seasonal precipitation than cumulative drought in the hot deserts of the United States.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2026Article
- Structural characteristics mediate forest mitigation potential against climate change and biodiversity loss.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Anthropogenic disturbances lead to phylogenetic overdispersion but functional clustering within forest communities of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Forest Cover and Geographic Distance Shape Ant Assemblages in the Southwestern Brazilian Amazon.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Warm-Loving Species Perform Well Under Limiting Resources: Trait Combinations for Future Climate.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Population assessment and habitat suitability modelling of endangered medicinal plant, Aconitum heterophyllum Wall. ex Royle in the western Himalaya.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Distribution Range and Richness of Plant Species Are Predicted to Increase by 2100 due to a Warmer and Wetter Climate in Northern China.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Plant Functional Traits, but Not Community Composition, Are Affected by Summer Precipitation and Herbivory in an Old-Field Ecosystem.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Differences in responses of invasive and native plants to climate change: a case study ofFrontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- High CONature · 2024Article
- Effects of Manipulated Rainfall and Intraspecific Variation Within Dominant Species on Community Assembly: Insights From a Long-Term Grassland Restoration Experiment.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- The buzz about honey-based biosurveys.npj biodiversity · 2024Review
- Winter climate change mediates the sensitivity of vegetation leaf-out to spring warming in high latitudes in China.Frontiers in plant science · 2024Article
- Precipitation variation: a key factor regulating plant diversity in semi-arid livestock grazing lands.Frontiers in plant science · 2024Article
- Spatial correlation reverses the compound effect of multiple stressors on rocky shore biofilm.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Multi-scenario simulation of ecological risk assessment based on ecosystem service values in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2022Article
- Assessing the roles of nitrogen, biomass, and niche dimensionality as drivers of species loss in grassland communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mitigating and adapting to climate change requires an understanding of the magnitude and nature by which climate change will influence the diversity of plants across the world's ecosystems. Experiments can causally link precipitation change to plant diversity change, however, these experiments vary in their methods and in the diversity metrics reported, making synthesis elusive. Here, we explicitly account for a number of potentially confounding variables, including spatial grain, treatment magnitude and direction and background climatic conditions, to synthesize data across 72 precipitation manipulation experiments. We find that the effects of treatments with higher magnitude of precipitation manipulation on plant diversity are strongest at the smallest spatial scale, and in drier environments. Our synthesis emphasizes that quantifying differential responses of ecosystems requires explicit consideration of spatial grain and the magnitude of experimental manipulation. Given that diversity provides essential ecosystem services, especially in dry and semi-dry areas, our finding that these dry ecosystems are particular sensitive to projected changes in precipitation has important implications for their conservation and management.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.