Grazing exclosures solely are not the best methods for sustaining alpine grasslands

PeerJ
Xixi YaoCailian Wang

Abstract

Grazing is widely regarded as a critical factor affecting the vegetation structure, productivity and nutritional value of natural grasslands. To protect and restore degraded grasslands, non-grazed exclosures are considered as a valuable tool. However, it is not clear whether long term non-grazed exclosures of grazers can improve the condition and nutritional value of vegetation and soil properties. We have compared the impact of long-term non-grazed and continuous grazed management strategy on vegetation structure, nutritional values and soil properties of alpine meadow of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by field investigation (11-13 years) and indoor analysis during 2015-2017. Our results showed that long-term non-grazed exclosures clearly increased the aboveground biomass and coverage of plant functional types. Long-term non-grazed exclosures improved the development of all vegetation types, except NG (GG, grass species type; SG, sedge species type; LG, leguminous species type; FG, forbs species type and NG, noxious species type). Long-term non-grazed exclosures significantly improved all six measured soil properties (TN, total nitrogen; TP, total phosphorus; TK, total potassium; AN, available nitrogen; AP, available phosphorus and...Continue Reading

References

Feb 27, 2004·Oecologia·Amy T AustinSean M Schaeffer
Feb 24, 2007·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Le KangOsbert Jianxin Sun
May 15, 2013·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·David R KempZhang Yingjun

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