Climate change and primary production: Forty years in a bunchgrass prairie

plant production, composition and summer senescence followed seasonal, not annual, climate trends. The period of greatest (> 88%) plant production (late-May–June) became wetter and cooler counter to annual trends, which resulted in increased plant production, especially for grasses. Summer temperature became warmer than expected from annual trends, which resulted in increased summer senescence and decreased fall regrowth. Therefore, our data sup- port claims that ecological forecasts for the consequences of climate change should be based on local [11–14] and seasonal [8,13,23–25] climate change, not regional and annual values. The above and additional patterns (e.g., nitrogen changes, species composition, invasive species, and possible increased fire) reported here indicate that intermountain bunchgrass prairie is no longer the historic ecosystem, and may be morphing into a previously unknown ecosystem. Therefore, ecologists may have difficulty in forecasting how ecosystems will respond to climate change and other associated disturbances without far greater ecological knowledge at local and seasonal levels as we describe here. Supporting information S1 Table. Summer weather, nitrogen and vegetation. Summer weather, nitrogen and vegeta- tion data are provided from 1978 to 2017 at various sites on the National Bison Range (NBR). (XLSX) S2 Table. Plant species. Plant species data are provided for various sites on the National Bison Range (NBR) from 1978–2017. (XLSX) Acknowledgments We wish to thank the long term assistance of the National Bison Range staff. Field work was

assisted by more than 70 individuals, but special attention should be given to L. Asher-Fuchs, D. Branson, J. Chase, R.R. Garcia, K. Haynes, D. Hoekman, M. Kerschner, A.N. Laws, E. Laws, K. Lee, J. Moorehead, N. Payne, J. Richter, M. Ritchie, O. Schmitz, D. Shetrone, S. Szabo, T. Tapscott, F. Wolz, and J.B. Wright. Author Contributions Conceptualization: Gary E. Belovsky. Data curation: Gary E. Belovsky, Jennifer B. Slade. Formal analysis: Gary E. Belovsky. Funding acquisition: Gary E. Belovsky. Investigation: Gary E. Belovsky, Jennifer B. Slade. Methodology: Gary E. Belovsky, Jennifer B. Slade. Project administration: Gary E. Belovsky, Jennifer B. Slade. Resources: Gary E. Belovsky. Supervision: Gary E. Belovsky, Jennifer B. Slade. Validation: Gary E. Belovsky. Writing – original draft: Gary E. Belovsky. Writing – review & editing: Jennifer B. Slade. PLOS ONE Bunchgrass prairie and climate change PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243496 December 23, 2020 16 / 21