How will increasing climate variability change plant species
diversity?  Principal Investigator(s):   Peter Adler  To most
people, global climate change means increases in average
temperatures. But scientists are also predicting that climate
change will cause increases in rainfall variability-more severe
storms and very wet years, but also more extreme droughts. Such
changes in rainfall variability might have significant impacts
on arid and semi-arid ecosystems. In fact, mathematical theory
predicts that climate variability can be important in
maintaining species diversity by allowing species to "time-
share" one habitat. This theory implies that a change in
variability could alter species diversity, but it has been
difficult to test due to a lack of appropriate data.   A
remarkable dataset from grasslands in western Kansas, USA
provides an opportunity to test theory about climate variability
and species diversity. For over thirty years starting in the
1930's, all individualChart plants in permanent quadrats w