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C3 And C4 Grass Dominated Plant Communities Differ In Response To Future Larger And Less Frequent Rainfall, Zigeng Chen
C3 And C4 Grass Dominated Plant Communities Differ In Response To Future Larger And Less Frequent Rainfall, Zigeng Chen
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Climate change is leading to larger and less frequent rainfall in the Northern Great Plains (NGP). We ask if this change in rainfall would influence carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling in the NGP. First, we collected soils from C3 and C4 grass dominated plant communities from western South Dakota and conducted an incubation experiment to explore the effects of soil water content (SWC) and temperature on soil respiration (Rs) and N mineralization rate (ΔIN). Second, we conducted a three-year rainfallmanipulation (RaMP) experiment with two distinct rainfall regimes (frequent/small and infrequent/large events with constant total monthly precipitation) and two grasses …