Effects of climatic and grazing changes on desertification of alpine grasslands, Northern Tibet

Sun, Jian; Hou, Guichen; Liu, Miao; Fu, Gang; Zhan, Tianyu; Zhou, Huakun; Tsunekawa, Atsushi; Haregeweyn, Nigussie

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105647

Cited by 59 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…The QTP is commonly called the "roof of the Earth" due to its high elevation, making it closer to harsh and extreme weather conditions [72][73][74][75] and degradation [69]. Climate change is considered to be one of the main causes of grassland degradation across the QTP [42,57].…”

Section: Degradation Caused By Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Literature has proven that climate change accounts for 56.7% of grassland degradation across the QTP [42]. The impact of climate change on the QTP has been felt in many ways, such as desert-extreme degradation, species extinction, decrease in biodiversity, and constant plant cover decrease over the years [25,41,55,72,73]. The unpredictable climate patterns have also influenced the river water quantity, storage, and flows, thereby affecting communities relying on water from the upper QTP region [55].…”

Section: Degradation Caused By Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Road and railway construction affected the vigilance behavior and initial flight ability of wild birds, and decreased aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP).[2,85,95-98]2. Climate changeIncreased unstable plant biomass; decreased plant cover and aboveground and belowground biomass; stimulated desert exacerbation; declined river water quantity, storage, and flows; decreased grassland quality and species richness, limiting precipitation and temperature; reduced permafrost and glacier receding; altered soil carbon and nitrogen cycling; and transformed alpine meadow into shrubs [25,34,41,55,60,72,73,85,[99][100][101]. 3.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

et al. 2020

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Grassland ecosystems on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) provide numerous ecosystem services and functions to both local communities and the populations living downstream through the provision of water, habitat, food, herbal medicines, and shelter. This review examined the current ecological status, degradation causes, and impacts of the various grassland degradation mitigation measures employed and their effects on grassland health and growth in the QTP. Our findings revealed that QTP grasslands are continually being degraded as a result of complex biotic and abiotic drivers and processes. The biotic and abiotic actions have resulted in soil erosion, plant biomass loss, soil organic carbon loss, a reduction in grazing and carrying capacity, the emergence of pioneer plant species, loss of soil nutrients, and an increase in soil pH. A combination of factors such as overgrazing, land-use changes, invasive species encroachment, mining activities, rodent burrowing activities, road and dam constructions, tourism, migration, urbanization, and climate change have caused the degradation of grasslands on the QTP. A conceptual framework on the way forward in tackling grassland degradation on the QTP is presented together with other appropriate measures needed to amicably combat grassland degradation on the QTP. It is recommended that a comprehensive and detailed survey be carried out across the QTP to determine the percentage of degraded grasslands and hence, support a sound policy intervention.

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Section: Degradation Caused By Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Degradation Caused By Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

et al. 2020

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“…However, Chinese grasslands are under strong anthropogenic pressures due to the effects of climate change and intensive land use [16][17][18][19]. As a result, Chinese grasslands are subject to increasing desertification processes that are profoundly changing land-cover characteristics [20][21][22] with negative impacts on species communities. Due to their prominent role in grassland ecosystems, carabids constitute one of the most investigated animal groups in grassland ecology around the world [23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competing Vegetation Structure Indices for Estimating Spatial Constrains in Carabid Abundance Patterns in Chinese Grasslands Reveal Complex Scale and Habitat Patterns

Tsafack

Fattorini

Frías

et al. 2020

Insects

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Carabid communities are influenced by landscape features. Chinese steppes are subject to increasing desertification processes that are changing land-cover characteristics with negative impacts on insect communities. Despite those warnings, how land-cover characteristics influence carabid communities in steppe ecosystems remains unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate how landscape characteristics drive carabid abundance in different steppes (desert, typical, and meadow steppes) at different spatial scales. Carabid abundances were estimated using pitfall traps. Various landscape indices were derived from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) images. Indices expressing moisture and productivity were, in general, those with the highest correlations. Different indices capture landscape aspects that influence carabid abundance at different scales, in which the patchiness of desert vegetation plays a major role. Carabid abundance correlations with landscape characteristics rely on the type of grassland, on the vegetation index, and on the scale considered. Proper scales and indices are steppe type-specific, highlighting the need of considering various scales and indices to explain species abundances from remotely sensed data.

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“…As an important region of the National Ecological Safety Construction, the Northern Tibet is mainly occupied by alpine grasslands, which are crucial components of global alpine ecosystems (Piao et al, 2006;Dorji et al, 2013). The surface temperature of the Northern Tibet has increased by approximately 0.45 ℃ from 2001 to 2015 (Sun et al, 2019), and will continue warming (Diffenbaugh and Field, 2013). Several studies conducted in the Damxung County (Fu et al, 2019;Yu et al, 2019b), the Xainza County (Lu et al, 2013;Ma et al, 2017), the Baingoin County (Ganjurjav et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2019) and the Nagqu City (Cui et al, 2017;Wu et al, 2020) have investigated the responses of localized alpine grasslands to climate warming under controlled warming conditions in the Northern Tibet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Long-Term Experimental Warming on the Nutritional Quality of Alpine Meadows in the Northern Tibet

Sun

Zhang

et al. 2020

Journal of Resources and Ecology

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Effects of climatic and grazing changes on desertification of alpine grasslands, Northern Tibet

Cited by 59 publications

References 66 publications

Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

Competing Vegetation Structure Indices for Estimating Spatial Constrains in Carabid Abundance Patterns in Chinese Grasslands Reveal Complex Scale and Habitat Patterns

Effect of Long-Term Experimental Warming on the Nutritional Quality of Alpine Meadows in the Northern Tibet

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