Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity
Timothy Ohlert, Melinda D. Smith, Scott L. Collins, Alan K. Knapp, Jeffrey S. Dukes, Osvaldo Sala, Kate D. Wilkins, Seth M. Munson, Maggie I. Anderson, Meghan L. Avolio, Anping Chen, Meghan T. Hayden, Martin C. Holdrege, Ingrid J. Slette, Peter Wilfahrt, Claus Beier, Lauchlan H. Fraser, Anke Jentsch, Michael E. Loik, Yiqi Luo, Fernando T. Maestre, Richard P. Phillips, Sally A. Power, Laura Yahdjian, Qiang Yu, Angel Chen, Andrew J. Felton, Laureano A. Gherardi, Nicholas J. Lyon, Hamed Abdoli, Mehdi Abedi, Juan Alberti, Antonio I. Arroyo, Heidi Asbjornsen, Harald Auge, Seton Bachle, Michael Bahn, Ilka Beil, Lucio Biancari, Irmgard Blindow, Viviana Florencia Bondaruk, Elizabeth T. Borer, Edward W. Bork, Carlos Martin Bruschetti, Kerry M. Byrne, James F. Cahill, Jr., Dianela A. Calvo, Michele Carbognani, Cameron N. Carlyle, Karen Castillioni, Miguel Castillo-Garcia, Manjunatha H. Chandregowda, Scott X. Chang, Jeff Chieppa, Amber C. Churchill, Marcus Vinicius Cianciaruso, Amanda L. Cordeiro, Sara A.O. Cousins, Daniela F. Cusack, Sven Dahlke, Pedro Daleo, Lee H. Dietterich, Maren Dubbert, Nico Eisenhauer, T’ai G.W. Forte, Flavia A. Funk, Darcy Galiano, Aaron C. Greenville, Liebao Han, Andy Hector, Hugh A.L. Henry, Daniela Hoss, Forest Isbell, Samuel E. Jordan, Yuguang Ke, Eugene F. Kelly, Sally E. Koerner, Juergen Kreyling, György Kröel-Dulay, Alicia I. Kröpfl, Angelika Kübert, Andrew Kulmatiski, Eric G. Lamb, Klaus Steenberg Larsen, Steven Lee, Smriti Pehim Limbu, Anja Linstädter, Shirong Liu, Grisel Longo, Alejandro Loydi, Junwei Luan, F. Curtis Lubbe, Andrey V. Malyshev, Cameron D. McIntire, Daniel B. Metcalfe, Malesela Vincent Mokoka, Akira S. Mori, Edwin Mudongo, Gregory S. Newman, Uffe N. Nielsen, Raúl Ochoa-Hueso, Rory C. O’Connor, Romà Ogaya, Gastón R. Oñatibia, Ildikó Orbán, Brooke B. Osborne, Rafael Otfinowski, Meelis Pärtel, Jesús Pascual, Josep Peñuelas, Pablo L. Peri, David S. Pescador, Guadalupe Peter, Alessandro Petraglia, Catherine Picon-Cochard, Valério D. Pillar, Juan M. Piñeiro-Guerra, Laura Weber Ploughe, Robert M. Plowes, Cristy Portales-Reyes, Suzanne M. Prober, Yolanda Pueyo, Golsa Rahmati, Sasha C. Reed, Dana Aylén Rodríguez, William E. Rogers, Christiane Roscher, David W. Rowley, Ana M. Sánchez, Bráulio A. Santos, Michael P. Schellenberg, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Eric W. Seabloom, Ruonan Shen, Baoku Shi, Lara Souza, Andreas Stampfli, Rachel J. Standish, Marcelo Sternberg, Wei Sun, Marie Sünnemann, Michelle Tedder, Tyson J. Terry, Pål Thorvaldsen, Katja Tielbörger, Maud Tissink, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Alejandro Valdecantos, Liesbeth van den Brink, Vigdis Vandvik, Liv Guri Velle, Svenja Wanke, Glenda M. Wardle, Cunzheng Wei, Christiane Werner, Georg Wiehl, Jennifer L. Williams, Amelia A. Wolf, Honghui Wu, Chong Xu, Xuechen Yang, Yadong Yang, Jenifer L. Yost, Alyssa L. Young, Ping Yue, Juan M. Zeberio, Michaela Zeiter, Haiyang Zhang, Juntao Zhu, Xiaoan Zuo | October 16th, 2025
As droughts become longer and more intense, impacts on terrestrial primary productivity are expected to increase progressively. Yet, some ecosystems appear to acclimate to multiyear drought, with constant or diminishing reductions in productivity as drought duration increases. We quantified the combined effects of drought duration and intensity on aboveground productivity in 74 grasslands and shrublands distributed globally. Ecosystem acclimation with multiyear drought was observed overall, except when droughts were extreme (i.e., ≤1-in-100-year likelihood of occurrence). Productivity losses after four consecutive years of extreme drought increased by ~2.5-fold compared with those of the first year. These results portend a foundational shift in ecosystem behavior if drought duration and intensity increase, from maintenance of reduced functioning over time to progressive and profound losses of productivity when droughts are extreme.
Keywords