Fig. 2. Responses of aboveground biomass to drought in experimental and observational studies as functions of site aridity and drought severity.
a,b, The lines depict relationships between lnRR and site aridity index (AI) (a) and drought severity (b) modelled using a meta-analytical model (Supplementary Note 2), and the shaded bands show 95% CIs (n = 75 for experiments (red) and n = 83 for observations (blue)). AI was measured as MAP/PET; note that larger numbers indicate lower aridity, and 1 indicates that MAP equals PET. Drought severity was calculated as the per cent reduction in annual precipitation in drought plots (drought years in observational studies) compared with control plots (years). The circle sizes are proportional to the number of replications in the studies, which was used as a weighting factor in the meta-analysis. For the test results, see Supplementary Note 2.