Whole communities of animals depend on these plants. Implications of the work extend beyond learning when additional water resources might be applied simply to help plants grow. Decreasing rainfall, in contrast, had negative effects on plants across both summer and winter, but may lead to some increased growth in the following off-seasons. While adding water in summer resulted in higher plant biomass, it generally did not increase the diversity of plants that grew, the researchers noted. A third group of plots received additional collected rainwater. Others were covered and allowed to receive rain only in one season. Some of the plots got whatever rain naturally fell. Over the course of the study, the team observed 24 plots of land at the Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center, in the Palm Desert area. Their findings are described in a paper published in the University of California journal Elementa. “Essentially, adding water in summer gets us more bang for our buck,” Spasojevic said. However, the same was not true in winter. The team observed that in summer, plants grow more when given extra water, in addition to any natural rainfall. “If we see an increase or decrease in summer rains, or winter rains, how does that affect the ecosystem?” “We wanted to understand whether one season is more sensitive to climate change than another,” said Marko Spasojevic, UCR plant ecologist and lead study author. These include the wildflowers that make for an extremely popular tourist attraction in “super bloom” years. A second community of plants sprouts in July and flowers in August. Normally, some desert wildflowers and grasses begin growing in December, and are dead by June. This region has both winter and summer growing seasons, both of which are increasingly impacted by drought and, occasionally, extreme rain events.
This is especially true near Palm Springs, where the research team created artificial rainfall to examine the effects on plants over the course of two years.
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How to help plants in drought-stricken statesĪ new UC Riverside study shows it's not how much extra water you give your plants, but when you give it that counts. A view of one plot in the artificial rainfall experiment at Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center.
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