Speaker
Description
Research on forage production to secure livestock feed is essential to face the challenges posed by global change. An overlooked aspect of climate change is how repeated heatwaves impact forage production (Breshears et al., 2021). Likewise, the role of species diversity and Sulphur (S) availability in mitigating their effects is poorly understood. Soil S availability has significantly decreased over the last decades(Scherer, 2001), making it particularly relevant to study plant’s responses to heatwaves, as S plays a major role in stress responses(Rausch & Wachter, 2005). However, there is a lack of research on how species with different S requirements respond to heatwaves. Resistance to heatwaves has been widely demonstrated among forage species(De Boeck et al., 2011). Because some species have the ability to recover (Langworthy et al., 2020), research has primarily focused on immediate responses to heatwaves but very little on longer-term responses. Plants are capable of storing and retrieving information from previous exposures to improve future responses(Liu et al., 2022). This mechanism should be considered in grassland management, as a grassland plant previously exposed to stresses is likely to better cope with repeated heatwaves. Multi-species grasslands would also have a greater potential to ensure production than monospecific crops, as diversity not only ensures at least some successful responses(Isbell et al., 2015) since resistance and resilience strategies are species-dependent, but it also promotes species complementarity (Chen et al., 2022). A 36-week experiment was conducted to simulate repeated heatwaves, S soil availability and mowing practices. The experiment included monocultures of four species (Lolium perenne, Lotus corniculatus, Plantago lanceolata, Festuca rubra), a mixed culture of L. perenne and L. corniculatus, and a mixed culture of the four species. The experiment was carried out to test the effects four thermoprotocols: a control, a spring heatwave, a summer heatwave, and of a combined sequence with one spring and one summer heatwave to simulate stress recurrence. Plants were grown over a 7-month cycle in order to take into account harvests after regrowth. We hypothesise better resistance of stress-tolerant species like F. rubra and L. corniculatus and a better resilience of L. perenne and P. lanceolata. We hypothesise then acclimated responses during the summer heatwaves following a spring heatwave of P. lanceolata and L. perenne due to their ability to produce new leaves. Our third hypothesis is that high S availability improves production, resistance, and resilience, especially for L. corniculatus, as a Fabaceae species. We also expect an enhanced production in mixed cultures than in monospecific ones. Our study, by highlighting the afterward responses, the species diversity and S availability as nature-based solutions to face heatwaves in a context of sulphur deficiency, aims at enhancing forage production management.
References
Breshears, D. D. et al. Underappreciated plant vulnerabilities to heat waves. New Phytol. 231, 32–39 (2021).
Chen, Y. et al. Drought-exposure history increases complementarity between plant species in response to a subsequent drought. Nat. Commun. 13, 3217 (2022).
De Boeck, H. J., Dreesen, F. E., Janssens, I. A. & Nijs, I. Whole-system responses of experimental plant communities to climate extremes imposed in different seasons. New Phytol. 189, 806–817 (2011).
Isbell, F. et al. Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes. Nature 526, 574–577 (2015).
Langworthy, A. D. et al. Can irrigating more frequently mitigate detrimental heat wave effects on perennial ryegrass growth and persistence? Agric. For. Meteorol. 291, 108074 (2020).
Liu, H., Able, A. J. & Able, J. A. Priming crops for the future: rewiring stress memory. Trends Plant Sci. 27, 699–716 (2022).
Rausch, T. & Wachter, A. Sulfur metabolism: a versatile platform for launching defence operations. Trends Plant Sci. 10, 503–509 (2005).
Scherer, H. W. Sulphur in crop production — invited paper. Eur. J. Agron. 14, 81–111 (2001).
| Keywords | heatwave, forage, experimentation, sulphur, acclimation |
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