Bloom and Bust: ecological consequences of precipitation variability in aridlands

摘要

An emerging consensus acknowledges increasing precipitation variability as a hallmark of anthropogenic global change (Luong et al. 2017; Roque-Malo and Kumar 2017). How aridlands, often characterized by episodic resource abundance and scarcity, will respond to future precipitation variability is of broad ecological interest and the inspiration for the focus of this special issue in Plant Ecology. Drawing on the economic expression, “Boom and Bust”, which refers to cycles of economic prosperity anddecline, our title, “Bloom and Bust” evokes the ecological impacts of extreme variations in rainfall in aridland ecosystems. Cycles of aridland resource abundance and scarcity are reflected in the adaptations and life histories of aridland plants, patterns of plant community composition in space and time, and in the biogeochemistry of aridland ecosystems (Noy-Meir 1973). Understanding the ecological consequences of an increasingly variable future climate is critical to maintaining the biodiversity ofaridlands (Gherardi and Sala 2015) and to managing the goods and services they provide (Hamerlynck et al. 2016; Van Loon et al. 2016).