Biomass Production of Different Grassland Communities under Artificially Modified Amount of Rainfall

ABSTRACT Global climate change is predicted to alter growing season rainfall patterns, potentially reducing total amounts of growing season precipitation and redistributing rainfall into fewer but larger individual events. Such changes may affect numerous soil, plant, and ecosystem properties in grasslands and ultimately impact their productivity and biological diversity. A five-year field study with regulated amount of precipitation was executed in different types of temperate grasslands (dry Festuca, wet Cirsium and Nardus grasslands) in three different regions (in lowland, highland and mountain, respectively) in the Czech Republic. Three simulated rainfall treatments were applied: reduced rainfall by 50% (dry), increased rainfall by 50% (wet), and natural rainfall of the current growing season (ambient). The addition of supplemental resources of water exhibited slightly positive relation with the above-ground production (AP), but statistically significant only in the lowland grassland. At all grassland...