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Degraded rangeland dominated by unpalatable forbs exhibits large-scale spatial heterogeneity

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Abstract

The spatial heterogeneity of vegetation and soil increases in response to land degradation caused by grazing mainly at a large spatial scale. This increase has been frequently associated with shrub invasion, but shrub invasion does not necessarily accompany land degradation. Instead, dominance by unpalatable forbs has been reported in some regions, but the spatial heterogeneity of such degraded rangeland has not been studied. We investigated the spatial heterogeneity of rangeland dominated by unpalatable forbs at a large spatial scale using Mongolian rangeland as an example. Spatial heterogeneity of the total vegetation cover and community heterogeneity were analyzed for three levels of land degradation. We found that the least-degraded site had homogeneous total vegetation cover and community, that the site with intermediate degradation exhibited low heterogeneity of the total vegetation cover but significant community type variation, and that the most degrade sites exhibited a periodic pattern of total vegetation cover as a result of a mixture of dense and sparse patches of unpalatable forbs. These different responses can be used to assess land degradation levels and may have potential to monitor land degradation at a large scale by satellite images.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Global Center of Excellence Program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (“Center of Excellence for Asian Conservation Ecology as a Basis of Human-Nature Mutualism”), and by the Global Environmental Fund of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (D-1105 “Biodiversity of dryland ecosystem and sustainability of nomadic production in Northeast Asia”). The authors thank Prof. Namkhai Bandi, Director of the Hustai National Park Trust, for kind support of our field surveys. The authors thank Yoshiko Kitagawa for assistance with our vegetation survey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Landscape Ecology and Planning, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi 1-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Tomoo Okayasu, Toshiya Okuro & Kazuhiko Takeuchi

  2. Center for Ecosystem Studies, Mongolian State University of Agriculture, Zaisan 53, Ulanbaatar, 210153, Mongolia

    Undarmaa Jamsran

Authors
  1. Tomoo Okayasu
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  2. Toshiya Okuro
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  3. Undarmaa Jamsran
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  4. Kazuhiko Takeuchi
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Correspondence to Tomoo Okayasu.

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Okayasu, T., Okuro, T., Jamsran, U. et al. Degraded rangeland dominated by unpalatable forbs exhibits large-scale spatial heterogeneity. Plant Ecol 213, 625–635 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-012-0027-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-012-0027-3

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