The burying and grazing effects of plateau pika on alpine grassland are small: a pilot study in a semiarid basin on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Yi, Shuai; Chen, Jianjun; Qin, Yu; Xu, Gaowei

doi:10.5194/bg-13-6273-2016

Cited by 42 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In addition, the DJI Innovation Company provides a software development kit (SDK) for developers, making it possible to design a specific flight route and flight height for a certain purpose. [57][58][59] has been used in the past to accomplish the automatic flight of the UAV rather than manual operation, reduce the probability of mistakes due to improper manual operation, and improve the efficiency of image acquisition. A new QUADRAT flight mode was designed to obtain vegetation point clouds at quadrat scale.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The height and flying speed of UAV were set to 20 m and 2 m/s, respectively, and the camera was set to a vertically downward direction. The FragMAP software (version 4.2) [57][58][59] has been used in the past to accomplish the automatic flight of the UAV rather than manual operation, reduce the probability of mistakes due to improper manual operation, and improve the efficiency of image acquisition.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimation of Grassland Canopy Height and Aboveground Biomass at the Quadrat Scale Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

et al. 2018

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Aboveground biomass is a key indicator of a grassland ecosystem. Accurate estimation from remote sensing is important for understanding the response of grasslands to climate change and disturbance at a large scale. However, the precision of remote sensing inversion is limited by a lack in the ground truth and scale mismatch with satellite data. In this study, we first tried to establish a grassland aboveground biomass estimation model at 1 m 2 quadrat scale by conducting synchronous experiments of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and field measurement in three different grassland ecosystems. Two flight modes (the new QUADRAT mode and the commonly used MOSAIC mode) were used to generate point clouds for further processing. Canopy height metrics of each quadrat were then calculated using the canopy height model (CHM). Correlation analysis showed that the mean of the canopy height model (CHM_mean) had a significant linear relationship with field height (R 2 = 0.90, root mean square error (RMSE) = 19.79 cm, rRMSE = 16.5%, p < 0.001) and a logarithmic relationship with field aboveground biomass (R 2 = 0.89, RMSE = 91.48 g/m 2 , rRMSE = 16.11%, p < 0.001). We concluded our study by conducting a preliminary application of estimation of the aboveground biomass at a plot scale by jointly using UAV and the constructed 1 m 2 quadrat scale estimation model. Our results confirmed that UAV could be used to collect large quantities of ground truths and bridge the scales between ground truth and remote sensing pixels, which were helpful in improving the accuracy of remote sensing inversion of grassland aboveground biomass.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of Grassland Canopy Height and Aboveground Biomass at the Quadrat Scale Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

et al. 2018

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“…, Yi et al. ), but the impact of grazing system and stocking rate on pika burrows and zokor mounds, and the associated underlying mechanisms have not been explored in the context of interactions of sheep, plant, and small mammals (Fig. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pika burrow and zokor mound density and their relationship with grazing management and sheep production in alpine meadow

et al. 2020

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Plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae) and plateau zokors (Myospalax baileyi) occur naturally in the alpine meadow of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). Their feeding and burrowing activities affect plant composition and soil properties (e.g., soil carbon accumulation and soil nitrogen cycling), but research to study the complex interactions between small mammals, livestock, and habitat is currently lacking. We conducted a sheep grazing trial to determine the effect of grazing management on pika burrow and zokor mound density, and the relationships between sheep production and pika burrow and zokor mound density. The grazing management approaches were warm‐season rotational grazing at 24 and 48 sheep months (SM)/ha, cold‐season rotational grazing at 24 and 48 SM/ha, seasonal continuous grazing at 24 SM/ha, and whole‐year continuous grazing at 48 SM/ha. The results of this study suggested that warm‐season rotational grazing at low stocking rate did not significantly change both pika and zokor densities. Cold‐season rotational grazing at both high and low stocking rates and seasonal continuous grazing at low stocking rate led to an increase in zokor mound density, but not pika burrow density. Whole‐year continuous grazing at high stocking rate increased both pika and zokor densities. The influence of pika and zokor activities on sheep production was complex and differed between grazing management. Sheep liveweight gain peaked at moderate pika burrow and zokor mound density at low stocking rate under both warm‐ and cold‐season rotational grazing. The threshold values of pika density were about 110 and 70 burrows per hectare in warm and cold seasons, respectively. The threshold value of zokor density was about 400 mounds per hectare in the cold season. In contrast, under high stocking rate regardless of management approach, sheep liveweight gain declined significantly as both pika burrow and zokor mound density increased. This paper provides a theoretical understanding and experimental evidence for sustainable grazing management and restoration of degraded grassland by local herders and policymakers.

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“…Patchiness generally refers to a landscape that consists of remnant areas of native vegetation surrounded by a more heterogeneous and patchy situation (Kouki and Löfman, 1998). Other than climate change (Yi et al, 2014), vegetation self-organization (Rietkerk et al, 2004;Venegas et al, 2005;McKey et al, 2010) or anthropogenic disturbances (Kouki and Löfman, 1998;Yi et al, 2016), rodent burrowing activities were also considered to be the origin of the patchiness (Wei et al, 2006;Davidson and Lightfoot, 2008). This patchiness intensified spatial heterogeneity of the land surface and led to the changing of the structure and function of the original ecosystem (Herkert et al, 2003;Bestelmeyer et al, 2006;Lindenmayer and Fischer, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This patchiness intensified spatial heterogeneity of the land surface and led to the changing of the structure and function of the original ecosystem (Herkert et al, 2003;Bestelmeyer et al, 2006;Lindenmayer and Fischer, 2013). For instance, there is abundant evidence that patchiness not only intensified the spatial heterogeneous distribution of ecosystem organic carbon (C) and vegetation productivity (Yan et al, 2016;Qin et al, 2018) but also altered the pattern of coupled water and heat cycling between the land surface and the atmosphere (Saunders et al, 1991;You et al, 2017;Ma et al, 2018). Consequently, this may alter the ecosystem carbon emission process (Juszczak et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of plateau pika disturbance and patchiness on ecosystem carbon emissions in alpine meadow in the northeastern part of Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Qin

Ding

et al. 2019

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) disturbance and patchiness intensify the spatial heterogeneous distribution of vegetation productivity and soil physicochemical properties, which may alter the ecosystem carbon emission process. Nevertheless, previous research has mostly focused on the homogeneous vegetation patches rather than heterogeneous land surface. Thus, this study aims to improve our understanding of the difference in ecosystem respiration (Re) over heterogeneous land surface in an alpine meadow grassland. Six different land surface types, namely large bald patches, medium bald patches, small bald patches, intact grassland, above pika tunnel and pika pile, were selected to analyze the response of Re to pika disturbance and patchiness and the key controlling factors. The results showed that (1) Re in intact grassland was 0.22–1.07 times higher than pika pile and bald patches, (2) soil moisture (SM) of intact grassland was 2 %–11 % higher than that of pika pile and bald patches, despite the fact that pika disturbance increased the water infiltration rate while soil temperature (ST) in intact grassland was 1–3∘ less than pika pile and bald patches, (3) soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) in intact grassland were approximately 50 % and 60 % less than above pika tunnel, whereas they were 10 %–30 % and 22 %–110 % higher than pika pile and bald patches, and (4) Re was significantly correlated with SM, TN and vegetation biomass (P<0.05). Our results suggested that pika disturbance and patchiness altered the ecosystem carbon emission pattern, which was mainly attributed to the reduction in soil water and supply of substrates. Given the wide distribution of pikas and the large area of bald patches, the varied Re in heterogeneous land surfaces should not be neglected in the estimation of ecosystem carbon emissions at the plot or regional scale.

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The burying and grazing effects of plateau pika on alpine grassland are small: a pilot study in a semiarid basin on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Cited by 42 publications

References 29 publications

Estimation of Grassland Canopy Height and Aboveground Biomass at the Quadrat Scale Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Estimation of Grassland Canopy Height and Aboveground Biomass at the Quadrat Scale Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Pika burrow and zokor mound density and their relationship with grazing management and sheep production in alpine meadow

Effect of plateau pika disturbance and patchiness on ecosystem carbon emissions in alpine meadow in the northeastern part of Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

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