Yao Xiang, Wang Haoran, Zhang Saiqi, Oosthuizen Maria, Huang Yilin, Wei Wanrong
Jiangsu Key Laboratory for the Research and Utilization of Plant Resources, Institute of Botany, Jiangsu Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nanjing Botanical Garden Mem. Sun Yat-Sen), Nanjing, China.
Sichuan Jiuma Expressway Co. Ltd., Aba, China.
Front Plant Sci. 2022 Dec 30;13:1036438. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1036438. eCollection 2022.
Burrowing activities of plateau pikas cause widespread bare patches in alpine meadows on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, affecting the plant community composition and forage production. However, it is not clear how these bare patches influence the main forage composition in alpine meadows.
Therefore, we investigated the plant communities in bare patches (BP) and neighboring control plots (CK) in alpine meadows in Maqu county in the Gannan region of China.
Our results showed that plant communities in the CK plots differed from those in the BP plots. The sedge cover, number of sedge species and number of grass species were all significantly higher in the CK plots compared to the BP plots. However, grass cover and its dry weight were significantly higher in the BP plots. Grass cover and the grass dry weight in the BP plots were 1.859 times and 1.802 times higher than that in the CK plots across the five sites, respectively. Grasses also had a significantly higher cover and dry weight than sedge in the BP plots, grass cover was 66.5 times higher than the sedge cover, and the grass dry weight was 68.242 times that of the sedge dry weight. Therefore, bare patches resulting from plateau pika burrowing activity significantly increase the grass/sedge ratio in alpine meadows.
A potential explanation is that grasses have a stronger reproductive potential than sedges in bare soil. This has implications for pasture yields since grasses have a higher biomass per unit area compared to sedges in alpine meadows.
高原鼠兔的挖掘活动在青藏高原的高寒草甸上造成了广泛的裸地斑块，影响了植物群落组成和牧草产量。然而，尚不清楚这些裸地斑块如何影响高寒草甸的主要牧草组成。
因此，我们调查了中国甘南地区玛曲县高寒草甸裸地斑块（BP）和邻近对照样地（CK）中的植物群落。
我们的结果表明，CK样地中的植物群落与BP样地中的不同。与BP样地相比，CK样地中的莎草覆盖率、莎草种类数和禾本科植物种类数均显著更高。然而，BP样地中的禾本科植物盖度及其干重显著更高。在五个样地中，BP样地的禾本科植物盖度和干重分别比CK样地高1.859倍和1.802倍。在BP样地中，禾本科植物的盖度和干重也显著高于莎草，禾本科植物盖度比莎草盖度高66.5倍，禾本科植物干重是莎草干重的68.242倍。因此，高原鼠兔挖掘活动造成的裸地斑块显著增加了高寒草甸中禾本科植物/莎草的比例。
一个可能的解释是，在裸土中，禾本科植物比莎草具有更强的繁殖潜力。这对牧场产量有影响，因为在高寒草甸中，禾本科植物单位面积的生物量比莎草更高。
