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Theoretical carrying capacity of grasslands and early warning for maintaining forage-livestock balance in the Qilian Mountains, northwest China

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Abstract

Aims

An in-depth understanding of the relationship between the theoretical carrying capacity of grasslands and the forage-livestock balance is crucial for maintaining ecological equilibrium in grasslands and guiding ecological engineering. However, the spatiotemporal patterns of these two parameters in the arid mountainous region of the Qilian Mountains (QLMs) in China remain unclear.

Methods

The Carnegie-Ames-Stanford approach (CASA) model was employed to estimate the theoretical carrying capacity. The grazing pressure index, which represents the ratio of the actual to theoretical carrying capacity, was used to assess the forage-livestock balance.

Results

From 2000 to 2018, the theoretical carrying capacity of grasslands in the QLMs showed a significant (p < 0.01) increasing trend (0.011 ± 0.002 standard sheep unit (SU)·ha−1·yr−1), with an average value of 0.73 ± 0.7 SU·ha−1. Its spatial distribution was high in the southeast and low in the northwest of the QLMs. The total annual precipitation of 72.1% in the grasslands was significantly and positively correlated with the theoretical carrying capacity (R = 0.45; p < 0.05). The average grazing pressure index of natural grasslands in the QLMs was 2.08 ± 0.14, indicating that the grasslands were generally overloaded. The value increased significantly (p < 0.05) from 2000 to 2010 but has been decreasing significantly since 2011. Spatially, overloading was more severe in the southeastern counties.

Conclusion

Precipitation was the main factor responsible for the increase in the theoretical carrying capacity of the grasslands. In future grassland management, the red early-warning zones exhibiting continuously increasing overloading should be prioritized.

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Data Availability

All data and materials generated or analyzed during this study have been included in this article.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the editors and reviewers for their precious proposals and remarks. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Yan Jing for providing language help and proof reading the article. This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant no. 2019YFC0507402) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant no. lzujbky-2022-it08).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gansu Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Prediction and Control, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Qinqin Du, Yunfan Sun, Qingyu Guan, Qingzheng Wang, Lushuang Liang, Yunrui Ma & Huichun Li

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Contributions

Qinqin Du: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data collection, Curation and analysis, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft; Yunfan Sun: Visualization, Validation, Data curation; Qingyu Guan: Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition; Qingzheng Wang: Resources, Software; Lushuang Liang: Data curation; Yunrui Ma: Investigation; Huichun Li: Software.

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Correspondence to Qingyu Guan.

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Du, Q., Sun, Y., Guan, Q. et al. Theoretical carrying capacity of grasslands and early warning for maintaining forage-livestock balance in the Qilian Mountains, northwest China. Plant Soil 498, 225–241 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06430-8

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