Factors affecting the recovery of abandoned semi-arid fields after legume introduction on the Loess Plateau

Yuan, Zi‐Qiang; Epstein, Howard E.; Li, Fengmin

doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2015.03.012

Cited by 17 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…In our study, the SOC and STP significantly negatively correlate with AGB in all treatments (Figure 5). It maybe that forage growth and compensatory growth absorb and utilize more soil nutrients (i.e., SOC and STP), which caused more AGB and less soil nutrient content (Yuan et al, 2015), as Fay et al (2015) also proved that plant diversity and productivity are closely related to soil nutrients. Another reason is that livestock ingested plant aboveground biomass (such as plant litter and green leaves), causing decreasing SOC content (Yan et al, 2020) and increasing AGB (Yang et al, 2019).…”

Section: Effects Of Grazing Intensity On the Biodiversity-productivity Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heavy Grazing Altered the Biodiversity–Productivity Relationship of Alpine Grasslands in Lhasa River Valley, Tibet

Xiang

et al. 2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Grazing is a crucial anthropogenic disturbance on grasslands. However, it is unknown how livestock grazing affects the relationship between biodiversity and productivity of alpine grasslands in Tibet. We carried out a grazing-manipulated experiment from 2016 to 2019 with grazing intensity levels of null (control, grazing exclusion, C.K.), moderate grazing [1.65 standardized sheep unit (SSU) per hectare, M.G.], and heavy grazing (2.47 SSU per hectare, H.G.) on a typical alpine grassland in the Lhasa River Basin, central Tibet. We measured aboveground biomass (AGB), species assembly (alpha and beta diversity indices), and soil nutrients’ availability. The results showed that grazing differently affected plant community in different treatments. Notably, the total dissimilarity value between C.K. and H.G. is 0.334. Grazing decreased the Shannon–Wiener index, increased the Berger–Parker index from 2016 to 2018 significantly, and decreased AGB and total soil nitrogen (STN) significantly. Our results also showed that the grazing affected the relationship between AGB and diversity indices and soil nutrients, including soil organic carbon (SOC) and total soil phosphorus (STP). Specifically, AGB decreased with increasing SOC and STP in all treatments, and heavy grazing changed the positive relationships between AGB, STP, and Shannon–Wiener index to negative correlations significantly compared with grazing exclusion. There was a significant negative correlation between Berger–Parker and Shannon–Wiener indices under each treatment. The general linear models showed that H.G. altered the relationship between diversity and productivity of grassland in central Tibet, and AGB and Shannon–Wiener index positively correlated in C.K. but negatively correlated in H.G. Our study suggests that H.G. caused a negative relationship between plant diversity and productivity. Therefore, sustainable grazing management calls for a need of better understanding the relationship between biodiversity and productivity of alpine grassland in central Tibet.

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Section: Effects Of Grazing Intensity On the Biodiversity-productivity Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heavy Grazing Altered the Biodiversity–Productivity Relationship of Alpine Grasslands in Lhasa River Valley, Tibet

Xiang

et al. 2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Determining the drivers shaping plant diversity is critical for predicting the response of restored ecosystems experiencing harsh environmental change (Lamb, 2018; Yuan et al, 2015). The combination of dispersal limitation and environmental heterogeneity drive changes in species diversity along environmental gradients (Chust et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological drivers of dissimilarity in multidimensional plant composition of early‐stage plantations in a loess hilly‐gully region

et al. 2023

Land Degrad Dev

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Plant diversity is an important link between forest ecosystems' structural composition and functional processes. The simple composition of young plantations is weakening the ecological function of restored forest ecosystems in arid regions. The ecological drivers of the plant composition and dissimilarity in plantations remain unclear, especially in the early restoration stage. To fill the gap in knowledge of the differences in species composition in early restored ecosystems, and to reveal the influencing factors of similar species numbers with different compositional structures, based on species' presence‐absence, abundance, and conspicuousness, we explored dissimilarity in the plant composition of young plantations in the loess hilly‐gully region. Our results showed that differences in alpha diversity among plantations were minimal, while the differences in beta diversity were significant. Even if the species diversity of a plantation was low, communities with similar species richness used to have large dissimilarities in their species composition. Turnover components and balanced variation often contributed significantly to species compositional dissimilarity. Co‐inertia analysis results showed species conspicuousness had the greatest consistency with observed environmental variables (RV = 0.65). The redundancy analysis and generalized diversity modeling results showed differences between the drivers of species diversity and dissimilarity. The primary influencing factors for alpha diversity were: soil water content, soil texture, soil total phosphorus, and soil organic carbon. Primary influencing factors for dissimilarity (beta diversity) were: soil nitrogen to phosphorus ratio, breast‐height diameter, soil water content, and stand density. Collectively, plant taxa dissimilarity was influenced by soil nutrient ratio and community structure and plant taxa abundance was influenced by soil nutrient content. Our findings improve the understanding of the plantation species composition and facilitate the prediction of ecological functions.

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“…Plants such as alfalfa with extensive and deep root systems can take up nutrients from a deeper soil profile (Guan et al, 2016). However, most previous studies have focused mainly on the effects of pasture management practices on SOC or nutrients in surface soil layers, especially the upper 20 or 30 cm layer, to a depth of 100 cm at most (Dong et al, 2015;Shang, Cao, Guo, Long, & Deng, 2014;Yuan, Epstein, & Li, 2015). Consideration of SOC and nutrients in soil layers below 100 is crucial to understand the deeper allocation of alfalfa roots, especially in dryland areas (Hoyle & Murphy, 2013;Plaza-Bonilla et al, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Trade‐offs between forage crop productivity and soil nutrients for different ages of alfalfa grassland

et al. 2020

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Obtaining sustainable high yield and suitable soil nutrient management is crucial for cultivate alfalfa grassland. However, the information on the trade-offs between soil nutrient and productivity of alfalfa grassland following long-term cultivation under intensive agricultural management is scare. Six alfalfa grasslands of different ages under a highly intensive agricultural management system were chosen for this study.It was shown that long-term planting of alfalfa reduced soil nutrients overall. In the 0-100, 100-200, and 200-300 cm layers, the highest values of soil organic carbon (SOC), soil total nitrogen (TN), and soil total phosphorus (TP) content were observed in one-year-old alfalfa grassland. SOC, TN, and TP contents in each 100 cm soil layers linearly declined with increasing stand age, and decreasing rates of SOC and TN (4.31 and 0.03 g kg −1 yr −1 ) in the 0-100 cm layer were higher than other two soil layers.The SOC storage (SOC S ) and TN storage (TN S ) in 0-20 cm soil were significantly higher than other soil profiles in six alfalfa grasslands of different ages. SOC S and TN S in 0-100 cm, especially in upper 40 cm soil, decreased over time until the fourth year, and gradually increased in the fifth and sixth years. While in the third and fourth years, productivity reached peak value (3.13 and 3.12 t ha −1 ), and then reduced. Correlation analysis showed productivity was significantly negatively correlated with SOC S and TN S in 0-100 cm soil depth. The decline in soil nutrients affected alfalfa growth and then feedback its productivity, and the optimal stand age of alfalfa grasslands should not be longer than 6 years for the limitation of soil nutrient, especially SOC storage. To acquire sustainable high productivity of artificial alfalfa grassland, our study suggested that more organic and nitrogen/phosphorus fertilizers should be applied to the upper soil layer beginning in the third year after planting.

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Factors affecting the recovery of abandoned semi-arid fields after legume introduction on the Loess Plateau

Cited by 17 publications

References 67 publications

Heavy Grazing Altered the Biodiversity–Productivity Relationship of Alpine Grasslands in Lhasa River Valley, Tibet

Heavy Grazing Altered the Biodiversity–Productivity Relationship of Alpine Grasslands in Lhasa River Valley, Tibet

Ecological drivers of dissimilarity in multidimensional plant composition of early‐stage plantations in a loess hilly‐gully region

Trade‐offs between forage crop productivity and soil nutrients for different ages of alfalfa grassland

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