Some Like It Hot: Are Desert Plants Indifferent to Climate Change?

Abstract

Deserts rank at the forefront of vulnerability to global change becausetheir biota is expected to encounter large climatic changes whileapparently existing at biological limits. We review the availableevidence for climate change effects on arid lands, and specifically onvegetation because as primary producers, plants are main providers ofecosystem services. We summarize field experiments and correlativeevidence from spatial and temporal climatic gradients. Surprisingly,only few climate manipulation experiments have been conducted insemideserts, none in arid regions, and almost none in cold drylands. Weargue that correlative approaches do not yield the necessary knowledgeto understand and thus mitigate potential changes due to their oversightof long-term evolutionary processes. Nonetheless, the limitedmechanistic evidence suggests a surprisingly high resilience of desertvegetation to changes in precipitation and CO2. We suggest thisresilience is due to specific adaptations that have evolved in responseto stressful and highly variable climatic conditions.