Plant Community and Soil Properties Regulate Space-Scale Dependence of Species Diversity under Grazing Exclusion and Rest Grazing in the Qilian Mountains of China

Lixiang Liu, Yongwei Han, Weiwei Liu () and Yuemin Liu
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Lixiang Liu: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
Yongwei Han: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
Weiwei Liu: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
Yuemin Liu: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: Grazing exclusion (GE) and rest grazing (RG) are important management systems for the restoration of degraded grassland ecosystems. In order to evaluate the effects and mechanisms of different grazing management systems on the scale dependency of species diversity, plant community indices and soil variables were determined in 32 plots in the Qilian Mountains in Gansu Province. The results show that diversity effects and their regulating mechanisms had space-scale dependence under different grazing management systems. The species richness and species diversity indices of RG grassland were significantly higher than those of GE at the regional scale. Species richness for RG and GE plots was 128 and 98, respectively, and the Shannon–Wiener and Simpson indices for RG and GE plots were 2.26 and 2.16, and 0.85 and 0.83, respectively. Additionally, three grazing management systems had a significant effect on species richness in mountain meadows, but different management systems had significantly different effects on species diversity indices in mountain meadows and temperate steppes. Meanwhile, soil variables only influenced species diversity at the regional scale. Most of the plant and soil variables at each scale had positive effects on species diversity. However, a negative correlation was seen between biodiversity and species coverage, mean plant height, soil porosity (SP) and bulk density (BD) under the two contrasting grazing management systems. In conclusion, choosing RG at the regional scale and selecting grazing management systems according to different grassland types at the local scale can help to restore degraded grassland vegetation.

Keywords: grazing management; regional scale; local scale; diversity effect; alpine grasslands; mountain meadows; temperate steppe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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