Effect of rest-grazing management on soil water and carbon storage in an arid grassland (China)

Wang, Dong; Liu, Yü; Wu, Gao‐Lin; LuMing, Ding; Yi, Zheng; Hao, Hong-Min

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.05.036

Cited by 44 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(69 reference statements)

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“…The RDA yielded an ecologically meaningful result that SWC was the dominant factor causing vegetation dissimilation after GE (Table , Figure ). Several studies suggested that in arid and semiarid regions, soil moisture is the overriding constraint on building and maintaining local ecosystems and the soil available water content can govern the quality of perennial plants (Castellano & Valone, ; Dong et al, ; Wang, Ding, Shen, & Lai, ). Moreover, an increase in the water retention ability, owing to improvement of edaphic structure, and a decrease in bare‐land evaporation after GE potentially impact soil feedback in terms of the changes in the vegetation (Wu, Liu, Zhang, Chen, & Hu, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of grazing exclusion on soil–vegetation relationships in a semiarid grassland on the Loess Plateau, China

et al. 2018

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Grazing exclusion (GE) is regarded as an effective practice to restore degraded grasslands. However, the patterns of vegetation recovery and related regulating factors in response to fencing have not been fully recognized. Hence, quantitative analysis of vegetation-soil relationships in response to GE was conducted in a semiarid grassland located on the Loess Plateau, North China. The results revealed that enclosure establishment significantly increased vegetation cover, height, and productivity but reduced plant diversity. Soil bulk density (0-20 cm) and pH (0-50 cm) clearly decreased after GE, whereas soil water (0-20 cm), organic matter (0-10 cm and 30-40 cm), and nutrient concentration (0-20 cm) increased significantly. Redundancy analysis of vegetation and environmental variables suggested that edaphic properties, including soil water, soil pH, total N, bulk density, and organic matter, was associated with plant community composition. Subsequent canonical correlation analysis indicated that soil bulk density, organic matter, and total N played an important role in shaping vegetation patterns in response to fencing whereas variations in soil pH and total N were the major contributors to variations in grazing rangeland. This work emphasized that fencing is a positive grassland management approach and suitable changes in grazing stock and soil variability are required to quantify vegetation recovery in response to grazing exclusion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of grazing exclusion on soil–vegetation relationships in a semiarid grassland on the Loess Plateau, China

et al. 2018

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“…Species–area curves are useful to analyze disturbances as grazing on species richness, allowing us to partition of spatial components of species diversity ( Loreau, 2000 ). Because grazing may have a pronounced effect on species abundance distributions, community productivity and composition in comparison to grazing exclusion ( Zhang et al, 2011 ; Dong et al, 2015 ; Ren et al, 2015 ), these factors mentioned above can alter the parameters of SAR ( Chiarucci et al, 2006 ; Dolnik & Breuer, 2008 ). However, results into grazing effect on SAR are not consistent ( Lande, Devries & Walla, 2000 ; FernándezLugo et al, 2011 ; Li et al, 2015 ), and it is necessary to study this aspect of species diversity in different locations and situations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A six-year grazing exclusion changed plant species diversity of a Stipa breviflora desert steppe community, northern China

Wang

Xinguo

Wang

et al. 2018

PeerJ

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Excluding grazers is one of most efficient ways to restore degraded grasslands in desert-steppe communities, but may negatively affect the recovery of plant species diversity. However, diversity differences between grazed and fenced grasslands in desert-steppe are poorly known. In a Stipa breviflora desert steppe community in Northern China, we established six plots to examine spatial patterns of plant species diversity under grazed and fenced conditions, respectively. We addressed three aspects of species diversity: (1) The logistic, exponential and power models were used to describe the species-area curve (SAR). Species richness, abundance and Shannon diversity values change differently with increasing sampling areas inside and outside of the fence. The best fitted model for SAR was the logistic model. Excluding grazers had a significant impact on the shape of SAR. (2) Variograms was applied to examine the spatial characteristics of plant species diversity. We found strong spatial autocorrelations in the diversity variables both inside and outside the fence. After grazing exclusion, the spatial heterogeneity decreased in species richness, increased in abundance and did not change in Shannon diversity. (3) We used variance partitioning to determine the relative contributions of spatial and environmental factors to plant species diversity patterns. Environmental factors explained the largest proportion of variation in species diversity, while spatial factors contributed little. Our results suggest that grazing enclosures decreased species diversity patterns and the spatial pattern of the S. breviflora desert steppe community was predictable.

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“…Soil is the largest pool of terrestrial organic carbon (OC) and contains at least three times as much carbon (C) as in either terrestrial plants or the atmosphere (Schlesinger, 1997). As a key control of soil fertility and ecosystem productivity (Tiessen et al, 1994), soil organic carbon (SOC) is sensitive to climate change and human disturbance (Knorr et al, 2005;Wu et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2015a). Small changes in the content of SOC due to alterations in land use and soil management practices or in soil erosion rates could greatly affect carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentrations in the atmosphere and thereby affect the rate of climate change (Lal, 2004a(Lal, , 2004bDesjardins et al, 2005;Muñoz-Rojas et al, 2013;Deng et al, 2014;Deng & Shangguan, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…slope gradient and aspect), land use type (farmland, grassland and forest), cultivation type (e.g. plant production and decomposition) and land management practice (Jobbágy & Jackson, 2000;Wei et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2011;Booker et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2015a;Deng & Shangguan, 2016;Wang et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2016). However, the factors that contribute to the spatial variability of SOC content in deep soil layers at large spatial scale have not been well addressed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A State‐Space Analysis of Soil Organic Carbon in China's Loess Plateau

et al. 2017

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An accurate estimation of soil organic carbon (SOC) is important for the evaluation and management of carbon (C) flux in terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is little work on the spatial variability of SOC in deep soils and its driving factors. Thus, the objective of the study was to derive the primary factors dominating the spatial distribution of SOC in different soil layers with the use of the autoregressive state‐space approach. The concentration of SOC was measured to the depth of 500 cm (n = 86) along a south–north transect of China's Loess Plateau. The mean SOC of the 500‐cm soil profile generally decreased from south to north following the decreasing rainfall gradient. Based on the investigated factors, the state‐space model was able to capture 90.3–99.9% of the spatial variability of SOC in the various soil layers. According to the coefficients in the optimal state‐space model for each soil layer, climatic factors such as precipitation and temperature had a dominant control over the spatial distribution of SOC at shallow depths. However, both climatic and edaphic (e.g. soil texture) factors, and to a small extent land use, influenced the spatial behavior of SOC at the 40–200 cm soil depth. For soil layers below 200 cm, the importance of land use was revealed, and the spatial characteristics of SOC were together driven by land use, climatic and edaphic factors. This is critical for the management of soil C flux in deep soils and the C stock and cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. Table SI. Basic properties of soils and climate and elevation under three land uses along the south–north transect on the Loess Plateau (mean ± standard deviation). Note that SWC is gravimetric soil water content. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Effect of rest-grazing management on soil water and carbon storage in an arid grassland (China)

Cited by 44 publications

References 58 publications

Effects of grazing exclusion on soil–vegetation relationships in a semiarid grassland on the Loess Plateau, China

Effects of grazing exclusion on soil–vegetation relationships in a semiarid grassland on the Loess Plateau, China

A six-year grazing exclusion changed plant species diversity of a Stipa breviflora desert steppe community, northern China

A State‐Space Analysis of Soil Organic Carbon in China's Loess Plateau

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