Timing outweighs magnitude of rainfall in shaping population dynamics of a small mammal species in steppe grassland
Disentangling the effects of rainfall timing and magnitude on animal and plant populations is essential to reveal the biological consequence of diverse climate change scenarios around the world. We conducted a 10-y, large-scale, manipulative experiment to examine the bottom-up effects of changes in rainfall regime on the population dynamics of Brandt’s voles in the steppe grassland of Inner Mongolia, China. We found that a moderate rainfall increase during the early growing season could produc...
United States Inner Mongolia Nei Mongol Research Program Of The Ministry Science China Meteorological Administration South America
Source: pnas.org