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The effects of grassland degradation on plant diversity, primary productivity, and soil fertility in the alpine region of Asia’s headwaters

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Abstract

A 3-year survey was conducted to explore the relationships among plant composition, productivity, and soil fertility characterizing four different degradation stages of an alpine meadow in the source region of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, China. Results showed that plant species diversity, productivity, and soil fertility of the top 30-cm soil layer significantly declined with degradation stages of alpine meadow over the study period. The productivity of forbs significantly increased with degradation stages, and the soil potassium stock was not affected by grassland degradation. The vegetation composition gradually shifted from perennial graminoids (grasses and sedges) to annual forbs along the degradation gradient. The abrupt change of response in plant diversity, plant productivity, and soil nutrients was demonstrated after heavy grassland degradation. Moreover, degradation can indicate plant species diversity and productivity through changing soil fertility. However, the clear relationships are difficult to establish. In conclusion, degradation influenced ecosystem function and services, such as plant species diversity, productivity, and soil carbon and nitrogen stocks. Additionally, both plant species diversity and soil nutrients were important predictors in different degradation stages of alpine meadows. To this end, heavy degradation grade was shown to cause shift of plant community in alpine meadow, which provided an important basis for sustaining ecosystem function, manipulating the vegetation composition of the area and restoring the degraded alpine grassland.

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by the Grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (2012BAC01B02) and the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China (201209033). The authors wish to express their gratitude to the reviewers and editors for their time and effort.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xuexia Wang, Shikui Dong, Yuanyuan Li & Xukun Su

  2. Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bio-resource Utilization, Chengdu Institute for Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Bing Yang

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  1. Xuexia Wang
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Correspondence to Shikui Dong.

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 6
figure 6

The approximate location of the sampling sites in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. ND, LD, MD, HD, SD represent non–degradation, light degradation, moderate degradation, heavy degradation and severe degradation, respectively.

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Wang, X., Dong, S., Yang, B. et al. The effects of grassland degradation on plant diversity, primary productivity, and soil fertility in the alpine region of Asia’s headwaters. Environ Monit Assess 186, 6903–6917 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-3898-z

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