Effects of disturbance of plateau pika(Ochotona curzoniae) on plant community in alpine meadow under grazing condition

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  • (1 Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology,Qinghai Key Laboratory of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Biological Resources,Chinese Academy of Science, Xining 810001, China)
    (2 University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China)

Online published: 2019-11-27

Abstract

In the alpine meadow ecosystem, Grazing is one of the important management methods, which plays a key role in the biodiversity. Plateau pika is an important component of the biodiversity in the alpine meadow ecosystem and plays a key role in the structure of the food network and its function and stability. The influence of plateau pika on the alpine meadow under the influence of grazing disturbance can be proved which provides a theoretical basis for the establishment of reasonable grazing in alpine meadows, and a scientific basis for the prevention and control of rodent pests with certain practical significance. From May to September 2017 in the meadow in Qilian County, Haibei Prefecture, Qinghai Province, we studied the effects of plateau pikas disturbance on the plant functional groups of alpine meadow functional groups under the control of grazing conditions. We found that the disturbance of plateau pika decreased the height of the most plant functional groups except forbs, and lightly increased the coverage of the forbs, but significantly decreased the coverage of functional groups of grasses, legume and total plants . However, we also found the disturbance of plateau pikas had no significant effect on the biomass and important value of plant functional group. Our results suggest that disturbance of the plateau pika has partly positive effect on the community characteristics of forbs, and inhibits the community characteristics of other functional groups under grazing conditions.

Cite this article

XU Hualei, WANG Xi, LIU Wei . Effects of disturbance of plateau pika(Ochotona curzoniae) on plant community in alpine meadow under grazing condition[J]. ACTA THERIOLOGICA SINICA, 2019 , 39(5) : 537 -545 . DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150238

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