Richness and composition of herbaceous species in restored shrubland and grassland ecosystems in the northern Loess Plateau of China |
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Authors: | Xiaoxu?Jia Email author" target="_blank">Mingan?ShaoEmail author Xiaorong?Wei |
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Institution: | (1) State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A & F University, Yangling, 712100, China;(2) Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China; |
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Abstract: | Restored grasslands and shrublands are integral parts of the semi-natural landscape and are of major importance for biodiversity
in the northern Loess Plateau. Determining the underlying factors that control the richness and composition of herbaceous
species in restored grasslands and shrublands is urgently needed. Thus, the specific objective of this study was to evaluate
the relative importance of soil, plant, and topographic explanatory variables affecting the richness and composition of herbaceous
species in restored shrubland and grassland ecosystems in a typical watershed within the northern Loess Plateau. In this study,
27 restored grassland sites and 16 restored shrubland sites were sampled during September 2009. Using variation partitioning
(partial canonical correspondence analysis), we determined the individual and shared effects of these three sets of explanatory
variables on herbaceous biodiversity in the two restored habitats. Most of the explained variation in plant diversity was
related to the pure effect of soil, plant, and topographic variables. Restored shrublands had significantly more species than
grasslands, and abandoned dam farmlands had significantly more species than other grassland sites. Moreover, botanical diversity
responded differently to the explanatory variables in different plant communities. The pure effects of soil properties, soil
moisture in particular, accounted for the largest fractions of explained variation in species diversity in restored grasslands.
Both plant and topographic variables had balancing pure effects on species diversity in restored shrublands, in particular
the shrub density and slope angle. We conclude that the maintenance of a moderate density of shrubs (less than 3600 shrubs
per ha), construction of check-dams, and grazing at a low stocking rate, taking conditions of soil and topographic site into
account, may help to conserve biodiversity in the northern Loess Plateau. |
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