Response of annual grassland carbon cycling to experimental rainfall additions

Annual grassland ecosystems are likely to be sensitive to changes in the timing and amount of rainfall, with important implications for climate feedback effects. Many climate models have forecasted rainfall increases for northern California over the next century. We hypothesized that increased rainfall in annual grasslands would increase soil respiration and decrease soil carbon (C) storage. Using microsprinklers, we augmented wet- season (typically November to April) rain events by 50 %, and each year, we added an early-season and a late-season rainfall event to extend wet-season length. Control plots received ambient rainfall only. We measured soil respiration and net primary production over three water years (defined as September to August) to estimate the net change in the soil C pool. The added early- and late-season rain events significantly increased soil respiration for three to four weeks after wetting, but did not significantly increase C respired per year. Soil respiration was not significantly increased by 50 % augmentation of wet-season rainfall over the study. An ANOVA of annual respiration from control plots showed significantly more respired carbon (F = 8.157, p = 0.02) in water year 2004 (WY 04; 1452 ± 152 g m-2 y-1), compared to WY 03 or WY 05 (998 ± 40 and 925 ± 71 g m-2 y-1, respectively). Greater soil respiration in WY 04 resulted not from higher annual rainfall totals, but from unusually late natural storms which occurred under warm summer conditions. Relative to controls, grass in treatment plots allocated more C to roots in the first (drier) year, and slightly more C to shoots in the second (wetter) year. Combined above- and below-ground net primary production was greater in WY04 (913 ± 171 g m-2 y-1 and 668 ± 93 g m-2 y-1 for treatment and control plots, respectively) than in WY03 (588 ± 85 g m-2 y-1 and 483 ± 46 g m-2 y-1 for treatment and controls, respectively), partly offsetting increased C losses from respiration. Our results suggest that C cycling in Mediterranean annual grasslands is probably more sensitive to changes in wet-season length rather than increased rainfall amount or intensity.