Different Responses of Growing Season Ecosystem CO2 Fluxes to Rain Addition in a Desert Ecosystem

Desert ecosystem CO2 exchange may play an important role in global carbon cycling. However, it is still not clear how the CO2 fluxes of shrub-dominated desert ecosystems respond to precipitation changes. We performed a 10-year long-term rain addition experiment in a Nitraria tangutorum desert ecosystem in northwestern China. In the growing seasons of 2016 and 2017, with three rain addition treatments (natural precipitation +0%, +50%, and +100% of annual average precipitation), gross ecosystem photosynthesis (GEP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) were measured. The GEP responded nonlinearly and the ER linearly to rain addition. The NEE presented a nonlinear response along the rain addition gradient, with a saturation threshold by rain addition between +50% and +100%. The growing season mean NEE ranged from −2.25 to −5.38 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1, showing net CO2 uptake effect, with significant enhancement (more negative) under the rain addition treatments. Although natural rainfall fluctuated greatly in the growing seasons of 2016 and 2017, reaching 134.8% and 44.0% of the historical average, the NEE values remained stable. Our findings highlight that growing season CO2 sequestration in desert ecosystems will increase against the background of increasing precipitation levels. The different responses of GEP and ER of desert ecosystems under changing precipitation regimes should be considered in global change models.