Study on the Effects of Different Non-growing Season Precipitation Treatments on the Photosynthetic Characteristics of Three Dominant Species in the desert steppes of Inner Mongolia

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-708-3_45How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Non-growing season precipitation; Desert steppes; Light response curves; Water use efficiency

Abstract

Climate change has altered the precipitation patterns of temperate grasslands. However, our understanding of the ecological effects of non-growing season precipitation changes remains limited. To explore the impact of non-growing season precipitation on the photosynthesis of typical desert grassland plants, this study focused on the desert grassland of Inner Mongolia. Four simulated water control treatments were set up for the non-growing season: 0 mm (CK), 10 mm (P1), 20 mm (P2), and water exclusion (P3). A four-year field precipitation control experiment was conducted. In the fourth year of the experiment, during the growing season, photosynthetic observations were conducted on dominant species under different precipitation treatments to investigate how non-growing season precipitation affects plant photosynthetic characteristics. The results showed that:

Among the three dominant species, Stipa krylovii exhibited the highest light saturation point, making it well-adapted to high-light intensity habitats in desert grasslands. Leymus chinensis and Convolvulus ammannii demonstrated higher light energy use efficiency under low light conditions, with higher apparent quantum efficiency and lower light compensation points. Moreover, their dark respiration rates were lower than that of Stipa krylovii, suggesting that they consumed fewer photosynthetic products through respiration and thus accumulated more organic matter. Comparing the light response curve parameters of Convolvulus ammannii under different precipitation treatments, it was found that Convolvulus ammannii was highly sensitive to the 20 mm (P2) water addition treatment, showing a stronger photosynthetic potential.

Analyzing the instantaneous photosynthetic parameters of the three dominant species revealed that Stipa krylovii exhibited increased net photosynthetic rate and water use efficiency under the 20 mm water addition condition, improving its photosynthetic efficiency. Convolvulus ammannii, under the 20 mm (P2) treatment, showed increases in net photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, and intercellular CO2 concentration, indicating that the increased water supply (P2) during the non-growing season also enhanced the photosynthetic capacity of Convolvulus ammannii.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Wei Shi
AU  - Yifan Song
AU  - Jianan Yao
AU  - Cong Wang
AU  - Yunhao Wen
AU  - Zhenxing Wang
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/09
TI  - Study on the Effects of Different Non-growing Season Precipitation Treatments on the Photosynthetic Characteristics of Three Dominant Species in the desert steppes of Inner Mongolia
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 10th International Conference on Advances in Energy Resources and Environment Engineering (ICAESEE 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 417
EP  - 430
SN  - 2589-4943
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-708-3_45
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-708-3_45
ID  - Shi2025
ER  -