Spatial Association of Shrubs and Their Interrelation to Burrowing Site Preference of Subterranean Rodents on Dune Slope in the Otindag Sandy Land, China

Lina Jiang, Xiao Wang, Long Li, Zhongjie Shi and Xiaohui Yang
Additional contact information
Lina Jiang: Research Institute of Forestry New Technology, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Xiao Wang: Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Long Li: College of Desert Control Science and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China
Zhongjie Shi: Institute of Desertification Studies, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Xiaohui Yang: Institute of Desertification Studies, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: Rangelands worldwide have more shrubs now, and subterranean rangeland rodents show close interaction to shrubs when choosing a burrowing site. The study was conducted in Otindag Sandy Land in Inner Mongolia, China with the objective of determining the effects of slope position on spatial pattern and interaction of shrubs; how rodents choose their habitat in different slope; and shrubs and rodents influence each other. To accomplish the objective set, we used three physiographic units: Plot 1 (upper slope), Plot 2 (middle slope), and Plot 3 (lower slope), and all individual woody plants and rodent holes in the three plots were mapped. The result of the study showed that: (1) two shrub species show a random distribution trend in all three plots except an aggregated trend only at the smaller scale on the upper slope; (2) the majority of subterranean rodents preferred to select their burrowing sites under the shrub crown, and these selected shrub individuals had generally larger crown length than those unselected individuals. At the same time, the majority of these burrowing sites were located on the lower right direction. (3) The distribution of rodents holes differ across the slopes in the study area. In the three samples, the relative locations of burrowing sites to shrubs are mostly distributed down slope of shrubs. From upper slope to lower slope, this trend gradually enhanced. Our conclusion is that the increase in shrubs represents a pioneer phase in the rehabilitation of degraded sandy land ecosystems, and colonization of subterranean rangeland rodents near the shrubs is a clear indicator of stabilization of sand dunes.

Keywords: spatial pattern; crown size; habitat preference; nurse–protégéassociation; rehabilitation area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1729/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1729/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1729-:d:113263

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().