J Plant Ecol ›› Advance articles     DOI:10.1093/jpe/rtag200

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Dominance of precipitation and its interactive effects with warming on epigeic arthropod communities in an alpine meadow

Xiang Jin1, 2, Shu Zhang1, 2, Pengfei Wu1, 2, Yinzhan Liu3, Jinhao Ma1, 2, Yuying Wang1, 2, Xiao Ren1, 2, Xue Wei1, 2, *   

  1. 1 College of Grassland Resources, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610225, China
    2 Sichuan Provincial Forest and Grassland Key Laboratory of Alpine Grassland Conservation and Utilization of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610225, China
    3 School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, Henan, China
    * Correspondence authors. E-mail: weixue@swun.edu.cn
  • Received:2025-11-30 Accepted:2026-08-13 Published:2026-09-01
  • Supported by:
    This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32201396, 41971064), the Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (2024NSFSC0030) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Southwest Minzu University (ZYN2024009).

Abstract: Arthropods play a vital role in litter decomposition, nutrient cycling and the regulation of microbial activity. Despite climate change-induced increases in temperature and precipitation anomalies, the interactive effects of these drivers on arthropod communities remain poorly understood. A three-year field experiment was conducted in an alpine meadow on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau to examine the independent and interactive effects of altered precipitation and warming on epigeic arthropod communities. The full factorial experiment included nine treatments combining three precipitation levels (-50%, 0% and +50%) with three warming levels (+0, +1 and +2 °C). The results showed that the precipitation treatment significantly changed the taxonomic composition of the epigeic arthropod communities, with a significant increase in their richness and Shannon index along the precipitation gradient. Collembola were more sensitive to altered precipitation than mites. In contrast, warming alone had no significant effect on these communities, but it nonadditively interacted with precipitation on the arthropod abundance (mainly Collembola). Critically, 1 °C warming reversed the effect of increased precipitation, resulting in a significant increase of 105.25% in the arthropod abundance. These climate-induced alterations in the arthropod communities were primarily mediated by changes in the vegetation coverage, species richness, soil bulk density, water content and nutrients. Our findings highlight that it is interactive climate drivers, rather than factors in isolation, that govern these alpine ecosystems, cautioning against over-reliance on single-factor studies. Consequently, climate-induced changes in arthropod communities may cascade through the soil food web, influencing overall ecosystem functioning.

In a three-year field experiment manipulating both precipitation and warming in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Xue Wei's team at southwest Minzu University found that precipitation dominated arthropod community shifts, while warming alone had no effect but interacted non-additively with it. This highlights that future predictions should focus on interactions among climate drivers, rather than on isolated factors.