Suitable grazing during the regrowth period promotes plant diversity in winter pastures in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau

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dc.contributor.author Wei, Wanrong
dc.contributor.author Zhang, Yan
dc.contributor.author Tang, Zhongmin
dc.contributor.author An, Shenghui
dc.contributor.author Zhen, Qiaoyan
dc.contributor.author Qin, Mingsen
dc.contributor.author He, Jundong
dc.contributor.author Oosthuizen, Maria Kathleen
dc.date.accessioned 2023-07-05T04:26:36Z
dc.date.available 2023-07-05T04:26:36Z
dc.date.issued 2022-10
dc.description DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors. en_US
dc.description.abstract Vegetation is a crucial component of any ecosystem and to preserve the health and stability of grassland ecosystems, species diversity is important. The primary form of grassland use globally is livestock grazing, hence many studies focus on how plant diversity is affected by the grazing intensity, differential use of grazing time and livestock species. Nevertheless, the impact of the grazing time on plant diversity remains largely unexplored. We performed a field survey on the winter pastures in alpine meadows of the Qinghai- Tibetan Plateau (QTP) to examine the effects of grazing time on the vegetation traits. Livestock species, grazing stocking rates and the initiation time of the grazing were similar, but termination times of the grazing differed. The grazing termination time has a significant effect on most of the vegetation traits in the winter pastures. The vegetation height, above-ground biomass, and the Graminoids biomass was negatively related to the grazing termination time in the winter pastures. In contrast, vegetation cover and plant diversity initially increased and subsequently decreased again as the grazing termination time was extended. An extension of the grazing time did not have any effect on the biomass of forbs. Our study is the first to investigate the effects of grazing during the regrowth period on vegetation traits and imply that the plant diversity is mediated by the grazing termination time during the regrowth period in winter pastures. These findings could be used to improve the guidelines for livestock grazing management and policies of summer and winter pasture grazing of family pastures on the QTP from the perspective of plant diversity protection. en_US
dc.description.department Mammal Research Institute en_US
dc.description.department Zoology and Entomology en_US
dc.description.librarian am2023 en_US
dc.description.sponsorship The Fundamental Research Funds of China West Normal University, the Gansu Provincial Science and Technology Program and the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan. en_US
dc.description.uri http://frontiersin.org/Ecology_and_Evolution en_US
dc.identifier.citation Wei, W.R., Zhang, Y., Tang, Z.M., An, S.H., Zhen, Q.Y., Qin, M.S., He, J.D. & Oosthuizen, M.K. (2022) Suitable grazing during the regrowth period promotes plant diversity in winter pastures in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10:991967.DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.991967. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 2296-701X (online)
dc.identifier.other 10.3389/fevo.2022.991967
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/91259
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Frontiers Media en_US
dc.rights © 2022 Wei, Zhang, Tang, An, Zhen, Qin, He and Oosthuizen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). en_US
dc.subject Plant diversity en_US
dc.subject Alpine meadow en_US
dc.subject Winter pasture en_US
dc.subject Vegetation traits en_US
dc.subject Grazing en_US
dc.subject SDG-15: Life on land en_US
dc.title Suitable grazing during the regrowth period promotes plant diversity in winter pastures in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau en_US
dc.type Article en_US


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