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Warming affects foliar fungal diseases more than precipitation in a Tibetan alpine meadow
Author(s) -
Liu Xiang,
Ma Zhiyuan,
Cadotte Marc W.,
Chen Fei,
He JinSheng,
Zhou Shurong
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
new phytologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.742
H-Index - 244
eISSN - 1469-8137
pISSN - 0028-646X
DOI - 10.1111/nph.15460
Subject(s) - ecosystem , global warming , climate change , biology , plant community , population , ecology , global change , precipitation , agronomy , environmental science , ecological succession , geography , meteorology , demography , sociology
Summary The effects of global change on semi‐natural and agro‐ecosystem functioning have been studied extensively. However, less well understood is how global change will influence fungal diseases, especially in a natural ecosystem. We use data from a 6‐yr factorial experiment with warming (simulated using infrared heaters) and altered precipitation treatments in a natural Tibetan alpine meadow ecosystem, from which we tested global change effects on foliar fungal diseases at the population and community levels, and evaluated the importance of direct effects of the treatments and community‐mediated (indirect) effects (through changes in plant community composition and competence) of global change on community pathogen load. At the population level, we found warming significantly increased fungal diseases for nine plant species. At the community level, we found that warming significantly increased pathogen load of entire host communities, whereas no significant effect of altered precipitation on community pathogen load was detected. We concluded that warming influences fungal disease prevalence more than precipitation does in a Tibetan alpine meadow. Moreover, our study provides new experimental evidence that increases in disease burden on some plant species and for entire host communities is primarily the direct effects of warming, rather than community‐mediated (indirect) effects.