Table 1.
The plant species, life form (LF), photosynthetic pathway (PP), life history traits (LH) and the percent cover of plant species within the quadrats (1 × 1 m2).
Figure 1.
Monthly average temperature (top) and total monthly precipitation (bottom) in the growing season.
Gray bars indicate the regional monthly averages (mean ± SE) from 1978 to 2007.
Figure 2.
Daily mean soil temperature and soil moisture during the growing season in 2011 and 2012.
UT, soil temperature in unwarmed plot; WT, soil temperature in warmed plot; UM, soil moisture in unwarmed plot; WM, soil moisture in warmed plot.
Figure 3.
Effects of warming and increased precipitation on the percent cover of dominant species in 2011 and 2012.
N. pectinata, Neopallasia pectinata; A. capillaris, Artemisia capillaris; S. klemenzii, Stipa klemenzii; C. squarrosa, Cleistogenes squarrosa, H. altaicus, Heteropappus altaicus; A. galactites, Astragalus galactites. Values are the means ± SE of three replications. Different lowercases indicate significant difference among different precipitation treatments in the same temperature treatment within the same year (p<0.05); * indicates significant difference between unwarmed and warmed treatments in the same precipitation treatment within the same year (p<0.05).
Table 2.
Results (P-values) of three-way ANOVAs on the effects of temperature, precipitation, year and their interactions on the percent cover of dominant species.
Figure 4.
Effects of warming and increased precipitation on the percent cover of different functional groups in 2011 and 2012.
GR, grasses; NF, nongraminous forbs; LE, legumes; SS, sub-shrubs; C3, C3 plants; C4, C4 plants; NP, non-perennial (annual/biennial) plants; PE, perennial plants. Values are the means ± SE of three replications. Different lowercases indicate significant difference among different precipitation treatments in the same temperature treatment within the same year (p<0.05); * indicates significant difference between unwarmed and warmed treatments in the same precipitation treatment within the same year (p<0.05).
Table 3.
Results (P-values) of three-way ANOVAs on the effects of temperature, precipitation, year and their interactions on the percent cover of different functional groups.
Figure 5.
Effects of warming and increased precipitation on species richness (S) of the community, Shannon-Wiener index (H’), and Pielou evenness (J’) (mean ± SE) in 2011 and 2012.
T0, unwarmed; T2, warmed; W0, ambient precipitation; W15, precipitation increased by 15%; W30, precipitation increased by 30%. Different lowercases indicate significant difference among different precipitation treatments in the same temperature treatment within the same year (p<0.05); * indicates significant difference between unwarmed and warmed treatments in the same precipitation treatment within the same year (p<0.05).
Table 4.
Effects (P-values) of temperature, precipitation, year and their interactions on plant species richness, Shannon diversity and Pielou evenness by three-way ANOVAs.