Soil properties and species composition under different grazing intensity in an alpine meadow on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, China

Abstract

As the main form of land use and human disturbance of grassland, livestock grazing has great influences on the soil resources and plant communities. This study observed the variation of soil properties and community characteristics of four treatments of different grazing intensity (no grazing, UG; light grazing, LG; moderate grazing, MG; and heavy grazing, HG) in an alpine meadow of Sichuan Province on the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. The results showed that grazing increased the pH, soil bulk density (BD), and contents of total carbon (TC) and total nitrogen (TN), and the BD increased while the others decreased with the grazing intensity. At the community level, with the increase of the grazing intensity, the vegetation coverage (R 2 = 0.61, P < 0.001), mean height of community (R 2 = 0.37, P < 0.001), aboveground biomass (R 2 = 0.54, P < 0.001), litter biomass (R 2 = 0.84, P < 0.001), and percentage of aboveground biomass of palatable grasses to total biomass (R 2 = 0.74, P < 0.001) significantly decreased, while the belowground biomass (R 2 = 0.72, P < 0.001) and the root/shoot (R/S) ratio (R 2 = 0.65, P < 0.001) increased. The species richness was the greatest at LG and the total biomass at UG. With grazing, the dominant species of the plant community shifted from palatable grasses (Gramineae and Cyperaceae) to unpalatable grasses (Compositae and Ranunculaceae). Based on the results, LG may be the optimal grassland management mode to be used in the long time in the alpine meadow of the Tibetan Plateau.

Impact of Grazing Intensity on Soil Properties in Teltele Rangeland, Ethiopia

“…Those soil chemical properties had an abundance of direct linkage between them. The pH and Na showed higher values at 0-10 cm of SD across all grazing level, especially at the OG site of HE, and this was due to the high distribution of sand soil particles and a positive relationship with pH and Na (Tufa et al, 2019;Yang et al, 2016;Wolka et al, 2011). As pH increases, the availability of certain major basic cations like Na, clay, and CEC are positively correlated because clay minerals provide the negative charge to attract the cations.…”

“…Rangelands are lands on which the indigenous vegetation is predominantly grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, or shrubs and is managed as a natural ecosystem (Raj, 2005). Arid and semi-arid rangelands are heterogeneous in space and time because of variation in biotic and abiotic factors related to vegetation and soil properties and provide multiple ecosystem functions and services (Wang et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2016). Rangeland heterogeneity shapes vegetation structure and productivity (IPCC, 2013;Yigini and Panagos, 2016;Ademe et al, 2017).…”

Mehlich 3 extractant used for the evaluation of wheat-available phosphorus and zinc in calcareous soils

“…However, Yang et al (2016) reported no significant relationship between the richness and grazing intensity in the Tibetan Plateau. The results indicated that the magnitude of the grazing intensity may not be a key factor influencing richness (Deng et al 2014b).…”

Plant community ecological strategy assembly response to yak grazing in an alpine meadow on the eastern Tibetan Plateau

“…Livestock grazing is the main form of land use and human disturbance on grassland vegetation (Díaz et al, ; Yang et al, ; Yun & Wesche, ). Recent researches (Caccianiga et al, ; Pierce et al, ) showed that, as an important driver of vegetation structure and community composition at α scale, disturbance (e.g., grazing, mowing, fire, and Till) would result in loss of biomass and reallocation of resource (e.g., light and space) and thus altered the pattern that S‐selected strategy dominated.…”