Changes in ecological processes over time in ambient treatments are often larger than the responses to manipulative treatments in climate change experiments. However, the impacts of human‐driven environmental changes on the stability of natural grasslands have been typically assessed by comparing differences between manipulative plots and reference plots. Little is known about whether or how ambient climate regulates the effec...

Uncertainty about the effects of warming and grazing on soil nitrogen (N) availability, species composition, and aboveground net primary production (ANPP) limits our ability to predict how global carbon sequestration will vary under future warming with grazing in alpine regions. Through a controlled asymmetrical warming (1.2/1.7°C during daytime/nighttime) with a grazing experiment from 2006 to 2010 in an alpine meadow, we fou...

Knowledge about the role of litter and dung decomposition in nutrient cycling and response to climate change and grazing in alpine ecosystems is still rudimentary. We conducted two separate studies to assess the relative role of warming and grazing on litter mass loss and on the temperature sensitivity of litter and dung mass loss. Experiments were conducted for 1–2 years under a controlled warming–grazing system and along an...