Complex responses of spring vegetation growth to climate in a moisture-limited alpine meadow

Since 2000, the phenology has advanced in some years and at some locations on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, whereas it has been delayed in others. To understand the variations in spring vegetation growth in response to climate, we conducted both regional and experimental studies on the central Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We used the normalized difference vegetation index to identify correlations between climate and phenological greening, and found that greening correlated negatively with winter-spring time precipitation, but not with temperature. We used open top chambers to induce warming in an alpine meadow ecosystem from 2012 to 2014. Our results showed that in the early growing season, plant growth (represented by the net ecosystem CO₂ exchange, NEE) was lower in the warmed plots than in the control plots. Late-season plant growth increased with warming relative to that under control conditions. These data suggest that the response of plant growth to warming is complex and non-intuitive in this system. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that moisture limitation increases in early spring as temperature increases. The effects of moisture limitation on plant growth with increasing temperatures will have important ramifications for grazers in this system.