Ecological Niche and Interspecific Association of Plant Communities in Alpine Desertification Grasslands: A Case Study of Qinghai Lake Basin

Abstract

The study of niche and interspecific relationships is one of the classical ecological theories. We set up four desertification gradients. The “Levins” and “Pianka”method were used to calculate the species’ niche breadth and niche overlap. Interspecies associations were analyzed by the ratio of variance (VR), Chi-square test, association coefficient (AC) and Ochiai index (OI). The results showed that in grasslands with different degrees of desertification, Stellera chromosome (3.90), Thermopsis lanceolate (3.52) and Aster almanacs (3.99) had larger niche widths, which were wide-area species of plant communities in the desertification area. The ecological niches of the same species in different habitats or different species in the same habitat were multi-dimensional. Niche differentiation measured by niche overlap can occur at any community succession stage. Niche width and niche overlap were not always consistent with environmental changes. Moreover, there was no linear relationship between them. The interspecific connection coefficient fluctuated greatly with the environment. The results can provide a reference for the study of plant community competition mechanism and desertification control in desertification land of the study area. We still do not know the mechanism of how the plants were preserved and how the retained plants adapted to the new environment during the desertification process. We can further study these questions in the next step.

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“…Niche breadth reflects a species' ability to adapt to habitats and use resources in a community [42,43]. An ecosystem is composed of a variety of species that occupy a variety of positions and play a variety of roles.…”

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